The Cup, the Knight, and the Soldier
by essential-dreaming
Summary: Sherlock and John are both Professors of Archaeology. And they have...a history. This is a fusion fic of BBC Sherlock and the film "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." There is a more explicit (smutty) version available at AO3.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1  
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_Utah desert, 1920_

The heat seemed to shimmer before them, the small troop of brim-hatted tourists on horseback, squinting up at the enormous rock formations about them and trying to hear the thin voice of their guide over the nearly audible swelter of the heat-quavered air about them.

"The Ute Indians used to inhabit this valley," the guide was saying, fanning himself with his hat as he rode along, gesturing in a vague circle. "The state is of course named for—"

"Are there any here still?" asked a slender, gawky lad on a dark bay, his accent suggesting an expensive English education. "Might we see some?"

"No, no, my boy," the guide assured him. "The last Utes were driven out some years ago."

"Pity," the youth replied. "Though 'Indians' is quite a stupid name, since they weren't actually native to India…"

The boy's father waved a hand to shush him, and the rotund boy riding abreast of the thin one suddenly slumped in his saddle and groaned. "Billy's got heatstroke," the slender boy announced with just a hint of glee.

The party reined into the shade of narrow, rocky hill and dismounted, helping Billy off his horse and providing him with water. The adults pulled squares of fabric from their packs and sat upon the ground, taking a light snack and cooling themselves. The slender boy paced in frustration, occasionally asking the guide a detailed question about the silica content of the rocks or the likelihood of poisonous snakes, but mostly being pointedly ignored by the quietly-chatting adults.

Billy was leaned against a rock, eating an apple and apparently regaining his strength with some speed. Looking back at the adults to make sure they weren't watching, the thin boy motioned to Billy, and the two slipped away, "Just for a walk," the boy said.

They hiked a ways along a narrow valley created by the rise of two short, sheer walls of reddish sandstone. Around the far side of the hill, some distance from where their families had taken shelter, they found a rather interesting cliff-face split by a tall, narrow opening. The tall boy regarded it curiously and said, "I wonder if this is a pueblo. Come on." Billy, though still sweat-sheened and red in the face, scrambled up the hill after him.

The opening led quickly to a narrow, dark passage, but it seemed, curiously, that there was light ahead as the boys crept along. "Ssh," the tall one admonished as Billy thought to mention it, and he crouched down as they drew nearer to the source of the light. The chubby boy imitated him.

The scene they found was at first confusing—lamps lit a work-site manned by three: a young, stocky boy with ginger hair, a taller man with long black hair and a kind of flat-brimmed cowboy hat that the boys had seen in American Westerns, and an older man wearing glasses, a fedora, and a leather jacket. He was speaking as the boys entered the scene.

"Careful, now, careful, lads. Got anyfing yet?"

"East End accent," murmured the thin boy. "Fascinating."

"I got something!" the ginger boy exclaimed. "I got something right here!" He turned and presented a wooden chest to the man in the fedora. The man stepped forward to open it while his companions shoved and jockeyed for the best view. When he withdrew his hand and turned toward the lamp-light, he was holding a bejeweled gold cross as long as a rugby ball. At first, the men only gasped or whistled low, but then Ginger gave a whoop and said, "We're rich! We're rich, ain't we?"

"But _he's_ American," the boy murmured, apparently to himself, "possibly Southern by the sound of it. Hmm."

Billy plucked at his arm, whispering "Sherlock! Sherlock! We should go back!" But Sherlock only waved a hand at him and crept forward. He seemed mesmerized by the golden cross that the man in the fedora was turning in the light, blowing the dust from its cross-beams and assessing with a practiced eye.

Billy inched forward until he was next to Sherlock once more, who whispered, "That's the Cross of Coronado. Cortes gave it to him in 1521. That is a very important artifact. It belongs in a museum." He frowned, calculating. _Time taken to find the others and return to town = too long. _

The man in the fedora at last laid the cross on a rock and turned back to where his men were continuing to dig for more treasure. Sherlock saw his opening. He turned to his companion. "Run back and find the others," he whispered. "Tell Mr. Havelock—no, tell my father that there are men looting in the caves. Have him bring the sheriff."

Billy blinked. "What about you?"

Sherlock turned back to the men in the cave. "I'm not sure. I'll think of something."

Once Billy had shuffled back down the dark passage, Sherlock set to work creeping down into the cave as quietly as possible. His penchant for sneaking into places he did not belong served him well, and he successfully retrieved the cross without drawing their notice—at least, until one of the ladder-rungs snapped beneath his foot on his return ascent. The men turned and saw that their loot was fast escaping on a pair of gangling, short-panted legs now disappearing over the top of the ladder and into the gloom.

The shock of sunlight made him wince, but Sherlock was so focused on speedy escape that he hardly noticed. He looked quickly about for signs of life, or Billy, but saw nothing. He whistled hopefully for his horse, with whom he'd been building quite a good relationship, and sure enough, the brown head appeared around a nearby copse of tall grass. The horse good-naturedly trotted forward to stand next to the outcropping on which Sherlock stood and, picturing an Errol Flynn sort of moment in his mind, Sherlock leapt. The horse had other plans, however, and Sherlock found himself on his arse in the dust. He quickly mounted, ignoring the pain in his backside, and heeled the horse to a quick run.

He could hear the sounds of vehicles moving through the narrow valley behind him, and he looked about for his tour group, but once more, saw nothing. There was, however, a train several hundred yards off to the right, moving in the direction of the town. It seemed as expedient as anything, and in moments, his excellent horse had pulled even with the train-cars.

Sherlock leaped on board and climbed atop the cars—feeling really very much like Errol Flynn for just one moment—before realizing that the three men from the cave had followed him. He ran along the top of the car, calculating—_circus train, full of animals—oh, hello, giraffes—and what else? Trapeze equipment—no, rubbish—clowns and acrobats—possibly useful, but not at such short notice—bearded ladies, dog acts, hoops of fire—and magicians. Yes. _There had to be a magicians' car, if he could just find it.

He was making good time along the tops of the cars—being younger and lighter than his pursuers—until he broke through the skylight of one car and fell into—

Oh. Horrid. Snakes.

_Snakes everywhere._

He was literally bathing in a sea of snakes. Snakes inside his clothing, snakes in his hair, snakes across his face, snakes crawling into places they had no business _atall_ to be—dear God, he'd never minded snakes before, but this. _This. _

He bellowed from the depths of his soul and somehow managed to leap—or fly—from the sea of snakes and move to the next car. But it slowed him down, pinpointing him handily for the three men pursuing him, and on the top of the next car, they nearly got him. It was only a tumble down yet another skylight that saved him.

And this time—oh, joy, no snakes—but oh. _Oh._

A lion. A full-grown male African lion was pacing toward him with a look that spoke placid hunger. And though he'd have been thrilled to see a lion any other day of his life, this was not the venue he'd have chosen for the experience. He backed quickly into the wall of the car, waiting for the pounce, and saw—a whip.

Well, of course, a whip, what else? He snatched it up quickly and unfurled it, giving one, two, small, experimental lashes, then a mighty crack that snapped back and bit him on the lip—just there, in the bottom corner, probably going to leave a scar—but another snap reached its goal and the lion snarled. Sherlock gave the whip another smart crack and the beast backed away, looking surly. Sherlock grinned. He could definitely get used to this.

"Throw up the whip, boy!" came a call from above, and the man in the fedora was nodding, gesturing to him. There was nothing for it. He threw the whip and the men hauled him up just in time to avoid a pounce and slash from huge, clawed paws.

They had him penned at last. The ginger boy, with a smirk, took the opportunity to knock him down a few times before hauling him to his feet and shaking him with satisfaction before the other two men. The man in the fedora stepped forward, the sun glinting off the thick, round lenses of his spectacles.

"You've got 'eart, boy," he said, "but that belongs to me."

"It belongs to Coronado, actually," Sherlock snapped. "Cortes thought so, anyway."

"Coronado's dead," the man replied, "and so are all his grandchildren."

Ginger gave him another sharp shake and barked, "Now hand it over!" He yanked the cross from where it was tucked in Sherlock's belt. Sherlock grabbed the cross, refusing to let go of his prize, and for a moment, the two played at tug-of-war for the gleaming artifact. But just then, a stray snake wandered from Sherlock's shirt sleeve, across the cross and onto the other boy's arm, and Ginger screamed, flinging the creature from him and giving Sherlock the moment he needed to grasp the cross to his chest and dash for the next car.

Oh joy, oh bliss, the one he'd been waiting for. He'd been studying magic on his own for years and of course understood how all of it worked. All he needed to find was—

Yes. The Disappearing Box—that disappeared people and not itself. He was just tucking himself inside when the man in the fedora came through the door, and it wasn't until he was safely running down the tracks and away from the train that he looked back and saw the man regarding him from the rear of the caboose.

He didn't stop running until he reached town.

His family were there—he could see them near the police station, thankfully. He ran gasping up to his father and to Mycroft, who was sneering coldly at him.

"Father! Father!" Sherlock called as he ran up to them, and he noticed that his father was speaking with a man in a white lawn suit and a matching panama hat. "Father, there were some men back at the—"

But his father put up a hand without turning to him. "In good time, Sherlock. You can see that I'm occupied. Count to twenty and then I'll deal with you."

Sherlock's brows were thunderous as he began to count. "One, two…"

"In Latin, if you please."

Sherlock's jaw clenched, but he switched to "Unus, Duo, Tres…" and scowled at Mycroft, who was now smiling smugly at him. He turned and dug his toe into the dirt, and his mother said, "Sherlock, you'll spoil your…"

She trailed off, apparently becoming aware of just how filthy and sweat-streaked her son was, with dried blood on his lip and rips in his clothing. "Oh, Sherlock, the trouble you do get into!"

Just then the sheriff emerged, and Sherlock left off counting to accost him. "Sheriff! There were men looting in the caves, three of them, and they—"

The sheriff held up a hand. "It's alright, son," he said in his flat American twang.

"They accosted me, and…"

"Do you still have the cross?"

"Yes, sir, it's right here." He held out the cross to the sheriff. It gleamed in the heavy sunlight, and the sheriff took it with a smile.

"Very good. I'm glad to see that, son, because now the rightful owner of this cross won't press charges."

He turned and handed the cross to—_bollocks._ The man in the fedora took the cross, and turned to hand it immediately to the man in the panama hat, who had been watching this exchange closely. The man in white motioned to the three men from the cave and Ginger and the long-haired man whooped and followed him, presumably to get their pay. The sheriff turned to shake Sherlock's father's hand, but the man in the fedora, who had not followed the man in white, turned to Sherlock.

"You lost today, sonny, but you don't have to like it, do yer?"

"I don't have to like the fact that priceless cultural artifacts end up traded for cash because of men like you? No, I don't have to like that at all. Much as you must have 'not liked' being a cabbie back in Essex. What, pay wasn't good enough for you?"

The man compressed his lips over crooked, discolored teeth for a moment, then smiled. "Well, then, a smart one, eh? A proper genius. My hat's off to you, Mistah Holmes." He lifted the fedora, revealing matted grey hair in need of a trim. "And someday, you might even look the part. 'Ere's good start on that." And he pressed the fedora down over Sherlock's unruly, sweat-soaked curls.

Sherlock caught sight of himself reflected in the windowpane of the sheriff's office. He had to admit, it was a look he liked. He turned back to the man who'd given him the hat, but he was walking away and Sherlock's mother was tutting and shuffling her dustbin of a son off toward their rented bungalow down the street. Sherlock watched the man go for as long as he could. He would have liked to have caught his name…

…And why that thought should bubble to the fore of his mind now, he really couldn't say, but he smiled grimly at the memory, as the man in the panama hat—now past sixty, by the look of him—bellowed against the roar of crashing sea, "This is the second time I've had to reclaim my property from you, Holmes!"

"Then perhaps you should speculate less and protect your investments more!" Sherlock shouted back, noting the level of wear on the white woolen suit and the panama hat—could it be the same one?—adding, "Your ex-wife agrees with me, by the way."

"My—habits are not your concern!" the man spluttered, holding up the cross. "And neither is this!"

"That belongs in a museum," Sherlock bellowed in return, a shock of cold spray coating the side of his face.

The man in the panama hat leaned in close. "So do you."

He turned to his men, who held Sherlock's arms, and said, "Throw him overboard!"

As the men shuffled Sherlock toward the edge of the wave-soaked deck, they drew near to a tall stack of oil drums stacked together. The ship gave a convenient lurch, and Sherlock pulled the two men momentarily toward him, shifting their weight, then using them as leverage, kicked at the clamp holding the band tight around the oil drums. The drums rolled out onto the deck and the two men jerked back in horror. Sherlock thrust his elbow into the gut of one and hooked his foot around the knees of the other, and both fell under the rolling drums.

Sherlock rushed toward the man with the panama hat, who had reached the ladder to the foredeck and climbed, but Sherlock was too fast for him, tackling him and pulling him off the ladder. The two men sprawled backward on the slippery, canted deck, and Sherlock was able to wrest the cross from his grip as they struggled for purchase.

He stood, only to find himself summarily whacked with a crowbar by one of the sailors who'd attempted to pitch him overboard. The cross went flying, and as he attempted to knock the man out with a vicious undercut, a huge wave crashed into the deck and sent them tumbling. Sherlock righted himself and shook the water out of his eyes—thankfully, the fedora was still in place, that wonderful old hat—and spotted the Cross of Coronado, mere inches from the edge of the deck and the nightmare sea beyond. He lurched for the cross, then clutched it to his chest as he tucked and rolled to avoid being squashed under renegade oil barrels.

"Stop him! He's getting away!" he heard the man in the panama hat shout, and Sherlock looked around quickly—yes, he remembered correctly from when he was brought on board—the Stevedore's hook at the edge of the deck would be just the thing. He clambered up the stacked crates and grabbed the hook, lifting his feet tidily as he swung over the reaching arms and cursing faces of the enraged sailors. "Careful of that TNT!" he shouted as he swung out over the dark expanse of ocean, and dropped into darkness.

But they didn't, of course, listen, and the _Vasquez de Coronado_ made a spectacular fireball only two minutes later as Sherlock breast-stroked to the prearranged location where his hired boat was scheduled to meet him. He nabbed a passing life preserver and indulged in a look back at the sinking ship, hoping the falling wreckage wouldn't land too awfully near him. Suddenly, he spied not far away the drifting remains of a white panama hat, quite devoid of its owner.

Sherlock smiled grimly and kept swimming.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2  
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_University classroom_

"Archaeology," Sherlock intoned, writing the word on the board for the benefit of the slow-witted, "is the search for _fact_. Not…truth."

He sneered slightly at the word, and a wave of chuckles rippled through the assembled students. "If it's truth you're seeking, then Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is just down the hall. Although I would be remiss not to note that Dr. Tyree is also prone to falling asleep during his own lectures, owing either to his unfortunate drinking habit or to the fact that his subject is so…dull and pointless." The students laughed again, this time a shocked titter, and Sherlock momentarily bit his lip, then pressed on.

"So forget any notion you might have about fabled cities, exotic travel, and unearthing lost treasures. Archaeologists do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot." He paused for a moment to let this sink in. Other than the front row—mainly populated by girls who'd been shuffled away to college by mothers intent on marrying them off as quickly as possible, he surmised, given the calf's-eyes they regularly pointed in Sherlock's direction—the class seemed hooked.

"So what, then? Where do we find the basis of our investigation, if not buried under the mysterious sands of time? Naturally, in the most exotic, information-rich location of all…" He leaned forward, hands on the desk, and the class seemed to lean forward in their seats.

"The _library,"_ he breathed, and the students let out a collective breath, slumping in defeat.

"Yes, the library. Repository of thousands of years' history, right at your fingertips. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading. Retracing the path. These are your three R's. I suggest you not forget them."

Mike Stamford had eased through the door to the lecture hall and was leaning against the left wall, watching Sherlock expectantly.

"This is why it is so important to rid ourselves of the ridiculous notion that myths, legends, and apocrypha will lead us to ancient relics. If we are to be effective at our craft, we cannot afford to take mythology at face value. This includes much of that which is ascribed to religio—"

But his words were drowned in the buzz of the bell signaling the end of the period. The students quickly moved to collect their books, notebooks, and bags. Sherlock, his brow creasing darkly, slammed a book onto his desk and barked a thunderous, "EGYPTOLOGY!"

The students jumped and sat staring, mouths agape.

"That's better. I believe the professor, not the bell, determines when class will be dismissed for the day. Now. Next week we shall begin the study of Egyptology, starting with the excavation of Naukratis by Blinders Petrie in 1885, so do your reading or don't bother showing up. I will also be…in my office," he added, his jaws clenched, "for the next hour if anyone is interested or _interesting_ enough to actually pose any relevant questions about the class material. Dismissed."

The students looked startled by his pronouncement, but then quickly gathered their things and flowed from the classroom as swiftly as water down a drain. Sherlock watched the last of them go, then Mike turned, closed the door, and approached Sherlock's desk.

But now Sherlock was smiling. "I did it, Mike."

"You've got it?"

Sherlock drew a wrapped item from his satchel and laid it on the desk. Mike approached and delicately unfolded the cloth to reveal the Cross of Coronado, sucking in a breath and then letting out a low whistle at the sight.

"Do you know how long I've been searching for that?"

"All your life?" Mike asked, lifting the cross reverently to examine it.

"All my life."

"Well done, Sherlock, well done," Mike breathed. "This will find a place of distinction among our Spanish collection, no doubt about that."

Sherlock tossed his overcoat over his arm and picked up his briefcase, and two men left the room together. "We can discuss my honorarium over dinner and champagne tonight. Your treat."

"Oh, yes," Mike said, still mesmerized by the cross. "My treat."

Sherlock's brief euphoria was dashed cold when he saw the mass of students gathered in the tiny receiving room outside his office door. Upon seeing him enter, they surged toward him, a tidal wave of hands clutching papers and voices calling "Dr. Holmes! Dr. Holmes!"

Sherlock squared his shoulders and waded into the mass, attempting to ignore them and get to his office door with as much dignity as possible. Irene accosted him halfway to his goal.

"Dr. Holmes! I'm so glad you're back. Your mail is on your desk. Here are your phone messages."

She pressed a stack of notes into his hand and he nodded absently, but she wasn't finished. "Here is your appointment schedule, and these—" plopping a stack of essays into his arms—"are the term papers you still haven't scored."

Sherlock plowed onward to the door, then turned to face Irene. "Put everyone's name on a list in the order that they arrived, and I'll see each one of you in—_turn_," he snarled to the throng, then turned and squeezed through his office door, slamming it quickly before anyone could get a toe in.

He took a deep breath and put down his things, his eyes drawn at once to a package on his desk. He examined the label; the postage was European—the return address said "Venice, Italy"—the package was a standard one used by the mail service in most countries in that region. There was no specific scent—faint traces of sweat, tobacco, the ink used to write the direction, but nothing that would point to the sender rather than one of the many postal workers who must have handled the package on its journey from Venice.

"Whom do I know in Venice?" he murmured, and wondered if it might be another of those "mystery" packages people sent him from time to time, to see if he could identify an object of unknown origin, or if he could be fooled into thinking that he'd been sent something rare and wondrous. He laid it aside and sorted through his other letters. Nothing of particular interest there, sadly, and his thoughts remained with the mysterious package.

He looked at the frosted-glass window of his office door, saw hands and faces pressed desperately to it, and shuddered. He'd promised the Dean he'd observe office hours this semester (for a change), but this hardly seemed worth his time when there might be an interesting mystery awaiting him inside the package from Italy. He bit his lip, considering, and in a trice was prying open his office window and hoping that the Dean wouldn't happen to be passing on the green beyond.

Outside, he dropped softly onto the green grass of the campus lawn, and found the day was fine and the coast was clear, except—

Men he didn't recognize, watching him. A black Packard, sleek and dangerous, parked at the kerb. _Mycroft._

But…no. Three men emerged from the vehicle, each positioning themselves—one to the right, one in front, one behind—so as to prevent Sherlock's escape. Not Mycroft, then. Fascinating.

The man in front of him, wearing a trenchcoat yet looking the least threatening of the three, said, "Sherlock Holmes?"

"Obviously," he said warily.

"Your presence is requested."

Sherlock made a show of looking about him as if to determine his options, before he sighed and got into the car. Best to make them feel they had the upper hand, after all.

The house they drove him to—an in excessively posh neighborhood—was meant to impress. The residents were apparently hosting a rather large, rather high-society party, but Sherlock had no interest in this, and was thankful when the man led him directly to a room off to one side. The room was spacious, elegant, well-lit, and filled with antiquities.

_Showoff,_ Sherlock thought, but barely had time to register any of this before a man entered—tall and middle-aged, with a prominent chin, small but intense blue eyes, and a quick, easy smile.

"Dr. Holmes. Welcome. I trust your trip down was comfortable. I hope my men didn't alarm you?"

His accent was London—Oxford-educated, probably, though he had been born in Kent, Sherlock surmised—but there was something a bit round and throaty about it, as if his vowels had been re-shaped by time in the United States. "Not at all. And you are?"

"Dr. Robert Frankland." He shook hands with Sherlock, whose eyes narrowed.

"Robert Frankland? The museum's—"

"Benefactor and biggest fan, Dr. Holmes, I assure you," Frankland said with a chuckle. "I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to meet before now. I admire your work."

"And I admire yours," Sherlock said. "Your contributions have been extremely generous. And some of your pieces here are quite impressive, as well."

"Like yourself, Dr. Holmes, I have a passion for antiquities. For instance, here's something that might interest you. Come and have a look."

He motioned Sherlock over to a table in the center of the room, where he drew a cloth from an object—a stone tablet, or half of one, with the bottom right half of a Byzantine cross and Latin text inscribed upon it. Sherlock leaned in for a closer look.

"Mmm. Sandstone. Christian symbol. Early Latin. Mid-twelfth century. From the region of…Ankara, I should think. Unearthed in a mine…copper, I'd say, by the mineral traces here, and here." He straightened. "You didn't need me to tell you all that."

"No, Dr. Holmes, I didn't, but I must say," Frankland gave a small shake of his head, "your reputation does you justice."

"Then why am I here, Dr. Frankland?"

"Care to translate the inscription?"

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "You don't need me to do that, either. You know what it says already."

Frankland only raised his eyebrows speculatively and gave a nod toward the tablet. Sherlock traced the words as he read. "... who drinks the water I shall give him, says the Lord, will have a spring inside him welling up for eternal life. Let them bring me to your holy mountain in the place where you dwell. Across the desert and through the mountain to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, to the Temple where the cup that—" Sherlock looked at Frankland, his eyes widening slightly. "…where the cup that holds the blood of Jesus Christ resides forever."

Frankland was smiling now, and holding two filled champagne flutes. He handed one to Sherlock and held his aloft. "The Holy Grail, Dr. Holmes. The chalice used by Christ during the Last Supper. The cup that caught his blood at the Crucifixion and was entrusted to Joseph of Arimathaea."

Sherlock took the glass and sipped the champagne. It was very, very good. Frankland was pulling out all the stops to woo him into taking the bait. "I know the story. Arthurian. Literature scholars' favorite bedtime yarn. Utter rubbish."

"Eternal life 'rubbish,' Dr. Holmes? The promise of everlasting youth to whoever drinks from the Grail? Now that's a bedtime story I'd like to wake up to."

"An old man's dream."

"Every man's dream," Frankland said, pointing at Sherlock. "Including, I believe, that of your former…er, colleague?"

_Ah. _All the stops, indeed. Sherlock stiffened, his lips compressed, his jaw tight. "John Watson, yes. Grail lore was his specialty—or, more accurately, his father's, who had been a professor of Medieval literature, the one the students hoped they didn't get. After his father passed, John had developed something of a…minor obsession with the notion of finishing his father's work." Sherlock put the champagne down on the gleaming white table. "Or at least, he did when I knew him."

"A noble cause."

"If you believe that sort of thing."

"You don't believe the Grail exists?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't. References to it are found mainly in artistic works rather than historical records. And even if the cup that Christ used at the Last Supper had been kept, and remains to this day—which seems extremely implausible, to say the least—it certainly isn't going to contain magical properties," he sneered, "beyond a mysterious hold on the imaginations of a very impressionable populace."

"But I'm sure you would be interested in studying such an artifact, if it were to be found," Frankland said speculatively, the pliant smile having not left his face once during the whole of their conversation. "A possibility which is well within our grasp. It's right here, Dr. Holmes," he said, gesturing toward the tablet, "the Grail's final resting place, described in detail!"

"Seems rather vague to me." Sherlock waved a hand toward the table. "This tablet speaks of mountains and canyons, which exist in abundance in that part of Africa. Presumably the starting point is mentioned on the top portion of the tablet. I don't suppose you've that lying about as well?"

Frankland only raised his eyebrows, took a leisurely sip of champagne, and said, "Dr. Holmes, an attempt to recover the Grail is currently underway."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned away from the tablet on the table. What an abysmal waste of his time. He should have stayed behind and listened to students' tiresome complaints.

"Let me tell you another bedtime story, Dr. Holmes," Frankland went on. "After the Grail was entrusted to Joseph of Arimathaea, it disappeared and was lost for a thousand years before it was found again by three Knights of the First Crusade. Three brothers, to be exact."

Sherlock turned, giving a one-sided smile. "I believe I've heard this one as well. Two of these brothers walked out of the desert one hundred and fifty years after having found the Grail and began the long journey back to France. But only one of them made it. And before dying of…" Sherlock bared his teeth upon the next word, "_extreme_ old age, the surviving brother supposedly imparted his tale to a—to a Franciscan friar, if I recall."

Frankland grinned broadly. **"**Not 'supposedly,' Dr. Holmes." He motioned for Sherlock to follow him across the room to an ancient, brittle, leather-bound text resting on a reading stand under a museum-quality display light. Sherlock approached and leaned in. "This is the manuscript in which the friar chronicled the Knight's story... it doesn't reveal the location of the Grail, I'm afraid...but the Knight promised that two markers which had been left behind would."

He and Sherlock both glanced back at the tablet lying on the table behind them.

"As you pointed out," Frankland continued, "half of a whole. But the second marker is entombed with the Knight's dead brother. Our project leader believes that tomb to be located within the city of Venice."

Sherlock frowned at the manuscript, reading quickly. The smell, the style of the paper, the ink, the browning of the paper as it had aged…looking at this volume, everything Frankland said appeared to be accurate. But Sherlock's mind was not really on the Grail, even so. Frankland's mention of John Watson had thrown open long-locked doors of his mind palace, and the memories were beginning to intrude upon his present. He pushed them back and said, "What does any of this have to do with me?"

Frankland opened his arms toward Sherlock. "As you can now see, Dr. Holmes, we are on the road to completing a great quest, one that began almost two thousand years ago. We're only one step away."

Sherlock snorted. "That's usually when the ground gives way beneath you."

For the first time, Frankland's smile wavered, then disappeared entirely. "You could be more right than you know."

"Yes?"

Frankland set his own glass down, now, and looked at Sherlock with a frown. "Our project leader has vanished, along with all his research. All we know is that his colleague, Dr. Trevor, sent a cable informing us of his disappearance."

Sherlock finally understood. "And you want me to find your man."

"Find the man…and you will find the Grail, Dr. Holmes."

Sherlock gave a short laugh. "You've got the wrong man for that job, then, Dr. Frankland. For Grail-hunting you'll need John Watson. I'm surprised you haven't—oh, but you _have…" _He trailed off, frowning at Frankland.

"Yes," Frankland said, "We had already brought him onto the project." He paused, then confirmed what Sherlock already knew to be true. "John Watson is our missing man."

Sherlock stared at the book before him, seeing nothing. _Oh, God._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_Greenwich_

It was late in the day by the time Mike and Sherlock arrived at John's house, Sherlock having explained all that Frankland had told him as they drove. He had not revealed what had been inside the package from Venice, though he had opened it the moment he'd finally been alone after being returned to the campus from Frankland's house.

"When was the last time you spoke to John?" Mike asked as they climbed the steps to the front door and rang the bell.

"Nearly three years ago," Sherlock murmured. He hadn't realized how long until just that moment. Yet at the same time, it felt somehow like a lifetime. Then he frowned, realizing the door was not quite flush with its frame. He pushed gently, and the door swung open. Sherlock and Mike exchanged looks of alarm, and then entered.

They walked single file down the short front hall, Sherlock calling "John?" He pulled aside the curtains leading to the drawing-room, and Mike gasped at the sight.

The room had been utterly wrecked. Books and papers lay strewn everywhere; chairs were overturned, their stuffing spilling from rough slashes. Shelf-contents had been strewn carelessly onto the floor, and the drawers of the desk and filing cabinets had been turned out.

"Dear God," Mike murmured. "What were they looking for, do you suppose?"

"Probably this," Sherlock said, pulling a small, leatherbound book from his breast-pocket.

Mike took it from him. "Is this…"

"John's father's Grail diary," Sherlock confirmed. "He mailed it to me from Venice. Apparently knew someone was going to be coming for him." He paced, eyes darting over the room, taking in every detail, but nothing—nothing—told him anything useful. It was all just noise. "John, you _fool," _he whispered. "I told you this Grail nonsense was a waste of your time."

Mike was flipping through the diary's pages. "Every detail of his father's search for the Grail. This is a wonderful piece of field scholarship, Sherlock. Look—look at this." He held the diary out for Sherlock to see, then gestured to a picture on the wall. In the pages of the diary was a hand-inked copy of the same drawing that was in the lithograph—Crusade-era figures falling into a great gaping chasm between two clifftops, with another figure floating safely midair, the Grail glowing brightly in his hands. "I wonder if there are enough clues here to actually find the thing."

Sherlock huffed. "Do you truly believe the Grail exists?"

Mike shrugged. "Not my area. But there is evidence…and a certain appeal to the notion. People need to believe. People need to feel the calling of the divine within them. It's what holy relics have always done for mankind. I think that sort of inspiration is…you know, necessary to the human condition." He smiled ruefully. "Plus, if anyone can find the bloody thing, it's the man who's devoted most of his adult life to studying this diary. How do you suppose we find him?"

"Start where his trail leaves off." The knot in Sherlock's stomach contracted at his own words. If John was being harmed… "Call Frankland and tell him I'll take that ticket to Venice."

"And shall I also tell him you'll help with the quest for the Grail?"

Sherlock gave a deep sigh. "It's utter nonsense, Mike. I always thought so, even when John and I were…"

"I know. But consider how hacked off John will be if you come all that way just to save _him_ and not recover the cup?"

Sherlock closed his eyes momentarily, bit his lip, then said, "Yes, alright. Tell Frankland I'm on the job."

"I'll tell him we both are."

* * *

><p><em>At the airfield<em>

Sherlock was surprised neither by the limousine that drove them to an airfield on the outskirts of London, nor by the private plane bearing Frankland's company emblem waiting for them on the tarmac.

"What's going to happen when we get to Venice?" Mike was asking Frankland.

"I've arrange for Dr. Trevor to meet you. You'll be staying in my private apartments while you're there. It's all been arranged. I hope you find it comfortable."

"Oh, very well. Thank you," he said, raising his eyebrows at Sherlock.

Frankland's men had loaded their luggage onto the plane, and signaled to the passengers to embark. Frankland turned to them and shook hands with each man in turn. As he grasped Sherlock's hand, he leaned forward and said, "Good luck, Dr. Holmes. Be very careful. And don't trust anybody."

Sherlock gave him a probing look, then turned and climbed the stairs to the plane.

Once they were settled, Mike leaned in to him and murmured, "What is it?"

Sherlock only gave him the briefest of head-shakes and frowned out the window as the plane began to taxi down the runway.

Once they were airborne, someone offered them tea, which Mike gratefully took but Sherlock declined. He flipped through the Grail diary, absorbing the imagery he felt might be useful and waiting for Mike to—with any luck—take a well-earned nap. Despite the short flight time, Sherlock needed time to ponder the situation. Closing the diary, he steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and closed his eyes. Mike must have taken the hint, for he was soon dozing in his seat, and Sherlock was free to roam the store-rooms of his knowledge for any clue that might help him strategize.

And yet. He found that, irritatingly, the only thing his mind could fully focus on seemed to be John, and those rooms that he'd firmly locked and had sworn never to revisit. It was an entire wing, really—full of John's face and hands and scent and voice and every place he'd ever been with John, whether making love or simply working back to back or shoulder to shoulder, absorbed in the hunt, just the two of them against the world.

Egypt, of course…that Anatolian dig in Turkey…the staff room at the university (thankfully on a week-end when the place was deserted)…and possibly most memorably, a deserted beach in the middle of the night on Antigua, after a fruitless search through the jungle for what turned out to be an utterly false lead, scrubbing off their sweat in the surf, splashing and dunking and laughter shifting suddenly to tangled, frantic kisses, breathless nips at bare skin, their cries of passion seeming to echo off the broad, full moon hanging above.

They had been lovers for months, but that night had been different.

There had been words afterward, lying on their flattened-out clothing, spent and warm and melted into one another, the softly-whispered words that Sherlock could still hear plainly even now. _Love_ and _forever_ and _darling,_ words that Sherlock had thought neither to ever hear nor to say. Words that anchored him to the world as nothing had ever before done. Words that should have transformed him entirely.

And yet when they'd returned to London, he remembered John's shouts, his own strategic withdrawal to the library, the unbreakable tension that had followed. His utter, utter failure to be what John wanted, or needed.

He was scowling out the window of the plane now, furious at himself for remembering, furious at being brought so neatly to heel by it, for not being able to keep it locked away or—better—deleted altogether.

_John._ He'd never been able to delete John. In truth, he knew he didn't want to, that his time as the object of John's affections had been the best of his life, and that he'd never be able to recover even half the happiness he'd lost when it had ended. Painful to recall it, yes, but there was some comfort in the notion that he could, in fact, feel love, be loved, and be happy, as normal people could.

There were times when he'd truly wondered.

There were times when John had been sure he couldn't.

_Oh, John,_ he thought, _how wrong you were._

And now, here he was, on a flight path that would take him—with luck—straight back to the person least likely to be pleased at his sudden appearance (out of all the people in the world who were never pleased to see him, which was, as far as he could tell, most of them). It would hurt, and John would hate him all over again, but it couldn't be helped. Whether or not he was the right man for the job, Sherlock was determined that he would find—and save—John Watson.

* * *

><p><em>Venice<em>

They travelled by water bus to Venice, and disembarked into warm spring sunshine onto a charming pier next to one of the most well-traveled canals. Sherlock had always enjoyed Venice, particularly at this time of year, and he inhaled briskly. "Ah, Venice."

Mike blinked around and said, "How are we supposed to recognize this Dr. Trevor when we see him?"

Sherlock was already scanning the people nearest, and had deduced that only two people could possibly be their antiquities professor: the first, a man sporting grey waves of deeply bryl-creamed hair and a prodigious mustache, was consulting what appeared to be a well-worn Baedeker, while the second—much preferable—was tall, lithe, and young, with smoothed-back brown curls kissed golden by the sun and eyes a most piercing shade of sky-blue. He approached the pair with a cautious smile.

"Dr. Holmes?" he said hopefully.

"Yes," Sherlock said, but then seemed, for a moment, unable to say anything further. Dr. Trevor grasped his hand in a long-fingered, supple grasp, and smiled in earnest. "I knew it had to be you."

He didn't seem inclined to elaborate on that comment, and Sherlock said, "Did you?" and, "Nice to meet you," in rather an undertone.

Mike's gaze shifted quickly between the two men, now standing with hands clasped and smiling vaguely at one another, and he seemed to be stifling a chuckle. "Er…Mike Stamford," he murmured, and Dr. Trevor seemed to catch himself.

"Oh, yes, hello, wonderful to meet you," he said, finally releasing Sherlock's hand and grasping Mike's. "Victor Trevor."

"Austria," Sherlock said quite suddenly, shaking his head ever so slightly as if to clear the glaze from his eyes. "Eastern Austria, near Vienna. Am I correct?"

Dr. Trevor grinned. "Excellent. John said you were—that is to say, your reputation is well-earned. I grew up in Eisenstadt."

"But educated in Vienna."

"Yes." The two men were staring at one another again, sea-blue meeting sky-blue, the rest of the world threatening to melt away around them. "Uncanny!"

"Er," Mike said again with a small cough. "Excuse me, but should we…?"

"Oh, yes, of course, forgive me," Dr. Trevor said with a hand pressed to his lapels. "You're here to find Dr. Watson."

"Where was the last place you saw him?" Sherlock asked.

"It was at the library. This way." And he led them down a narrow, cobbled street into the city. "We were very close to finding the knight's tomb. He was ecstatic. He sent me to the map section to find an ancient plan of the city. When I got back, he was gone, along with all his papers. No one saw anything, of course."

"Naturally."

"But he did leave this behind." Dr. Trevor handed a slip of paper to Sherlock.

Sherlock examined the paper, then handed it to Mike. "Roman numerals." Mike looked completely blank, but Sherlock barely registered his confusion as his gaze stayed fixed upon Trevor.

The walk through the city didn't take long, but Sherlock used the time to deduce what he could about their new companion. He was well-dressed in a tidy, dark blue suit, and though it was new it wasn't the best quality. He had taken some care with his appearance—there were no tell-tale ink smudges on his fingers or unshaven patches on his finely-chiseled jaw—and his shoes were not expensive but very well-kept. The entire portrait strongly suggested that Trevor's position was perhaps a freshly-attained one, not quite commensurate with his apparent age but rather suggesting high merit and/or ambition. Sherlock wondered how ready he would be for the down-and-dirty business of crawling through tombs or pawing through boneyards, if it came to that.

In all, Sherlock surmised that though this man might be an expert in the archaeological lore learned in books, he was not a field scholar by any means.

And yet there was something quite compelling about him. And he was not yet ready to admit that it might be the light in Trevor's eyes and the dazzle in his sunshine smile that had unsettled Sherlock's usually-steady pulse so thoroughly. No…surely it had to be the level of knowledge the man possessed. Only that. Just that.

They came at last to a small piazza, filled with tables and chairs and people enjoying brunch near the canal. The library backgrounded this charming scene; it had a distinctly Roman look, and once they got inside and came to stand in front of a broad, multi-paneled medieval stained-glass window, Sherlock knew why.

But Mike voiced it first. "It looks like a converted church."

"Just so, Dr. Stamford," Trevor confirmed. "We are on holy ground. These columns over here—" he pointed to columns framing the window panels—"were brought back as spoils of war after the sacking of Byzantium during the Crusades."

Sherlock glanced at the columns but was focused on the window directly in front of him. "And this is where John was working when…"

"Yes," said Trevor. "If you'll excuse me, I'll arrange for the library to stay open a bit longer for us."

When he had vanished around the corner, Sherlock withdrew the Grail diary from his breast-pocket. He flipped through it until he found the page he was looking for—a replica of the very window he was standing before. "Mike, look."

They considered the drawing, which did not maintain the scale of the original and thus more clearly highlighted the three roman numerals neatly framed underneath the three knightly figures depicted in the window. "Sherlock, the numbers."

"Yes," he breathed, and slipped the diary back into his pocket. "But let's not share everything with Dr. Trevor just yet." He looked again at the slip of paper that the young researcher had given him. "John knew these numbers were the key." He held it up against the window in front of him. "Mike, look. _Look. _Of course!"

Trevor had returned. He loomed near Sherlock and looked over his shoulder at the paper. "Did you find something?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, "the numbers." He pointed to the columns, with Roman numerals clearly etched into the smooth stone.

"My God, I must be blind," Trevor breathed, and then grinned at Sherlock. "Does this mean that…"

"Yes, naturally, what else?"

"Brilliant!" He grasped Sherlock's shoulders in excitement.

"Obvious," Sherlock replied, but his cheeks looked a bit less pale than usual.

"Excuse me," Mike said, waving his hands between the two men's rapt faces. "What's so obvious, if I may ask?"

"Didn't you hear him?" Sherlock answered. "This is a church. John didn't come here looking for information about the knight's tomb; he came looking for the tomb itself. The numbers are the clue to its location." He pointed to the window, and then to the matching number on the opposite column. "Three…three. Seven…seven." He frowned. "Ten."

They all scanned the window panels, the columns, the surrounding walls. "No ten. Look about for the ten!"

Sherlock frowned and pressed his lips together as Mike and Trevor fanned out, looking for any sign of a Roman numeral "X." He saw nothing, but perhaps he could deduce it. III on the left, VII on the right…the ten would be in the center, then, as it was in the window, but there were no more numbers etched on the columns. It would be a marker for an entrance to a tomb…a _tomb…_

He looked downward, squinting slightly, then searched for higher ground. There was a spiral staircase not far away, and he sprinted up it, then shouted in triumph while pointing to the library floor, "Ten!"

Inset in polished red marble on the ancient floor was a gigantic letter "X."

Mike and Trevor looked up at him, smiling in wonder. Sherlock shrugged and gave a small grin.

"X marks the spot!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_The Knight's Tomb_

There had been some difficulty in prying up one of the marble tiles that covered the floor, but at last they had an opening into a dark, dank hole smelling strongly of longtime decomposition, dampness, and disuse. Trevor had insisted upon being lowered down first—"Call me Victor," he had said with a wide grin and a small wink—after which Sherlock had surreptitiously slipped Mike the diary before following Victor down the hole.

Victor flicked on a cigarette lighter and they picked their way cautiously down the passage, fingertips grazing the walls as they went. After a moment, Victor drew near to one wall, illuminating some markings on the wall with the glow of the lighter.

"Pagan symbols," he said. "Fourth or fifth century, probably."

"Right," Sherlock said with a nod. "Six hundred years before the Crusades."

"The Christians would have dug their own passages centuries later."

"Exactly. And if there is a knight of the First Crusade entombed down here, that's where we'll find him."

They set off down a narrow, dark tunnel that seemed smaller and, perhaps, a bit newer than the chamber they'd descended into, their fingers grazing the walls on either side as they went. After a few moments of silent exploration, Victor slipped on something unseen and lost his balance, quickly grabbing Sherlock's hand. Once righted, he had paused for a moment before murmuring "Thanks" and continued along the passage, his hand now on Sherlock's shoulder…for support, probably, Sherlock supposed, ignoring the flutter in his stomach at the warm contact.

In the library above, Mike crouched at the entrance to the hole, hoping they would be back soon and wondering if there was any chance of a late luncheon out on the piazza when they did, when quite suddenly, the world went black, and he sprawled unconscious onto the cold marble floor. Several men in pinstripe suits and red fezzes crept past him and lowered themselves into the darkness where Victor and Sherlock had disappeared only minutes before.

Sherlock and Victor were now beginning to see signs that they were on the right track, passing niches in the wall in which were laid skeletal remains, clad in decomposing linen and, in some cases, clutching artifacts from their time on earth.

The markings on the wall had taken on more recognizable Christian imagery, as well, and Victor stopped curiously at one drawing of what appeared to be a box with an ornately-decorated lid. "What's this one?"

"The Ark of the Convenant."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

Sherlock frowned ahead of them and took the lighter from Victor, holding it up to the wall directly ahead of them. He brushed at the thick cobwebs and dust that covered the stone, and revealed a roughly-carved "X" in the center of the wall.

He looked at Victor, handed the lighter back to him, and leaned back. Bracing himself against the passage, he crouched slightly and then kicked at the wall, first with one leg and then with both, until the aged stone gave way and crumbled into itself, revealing a gap large enough for them to pass through easily.

Sherlock took the lighter and peered through first, Victor leaning in over his shoulder. They could see more niches in the walls holding more rotting corpses, but the smell of petroleum was at first overwhelming. The viscous liquid shifted and bubbled sluggishly beneath them, filling the tunnel like a miniature version of Venice's canals.

"Hmm," Sherlock murmured. "Perhaps I should establish a well down here and retire early."

Victor chuckled, and they stepped forward through the gap in the wall. They had gone no further than the first tomb-niche when Sherlock held up a hand, wrenched one of the nearest skeleton's thigh-bones free, ripped a large swath of decaying cloth from the corpse, and wrapped it about the hip-end of the bone. He then dipped the bulge of cloth generously in the bubbling petroleum and lit his makeshift torch using Victor's lighter. They continued with a great deal more light to guide them than before. Sherlock did not see Victor's gaze of intense interest following him as they picked their way through the passage, but when standing still, he could deduce the increase in respiration rate, and might have even been able to glimpse the dilated pupils, had he been looking.

At first, they attempted to avoid stepping in the petroleum, flammable as it was, but soon they found that the passage was too clogged with rats—trying to stay clear of the stuff, no doubt—that they couldn't proceed without stepping on the creatures. So with a glance, both men silently agreed to hop into the thigh-deep stream of liquid fuel and pressed forward with resolve.

At last they came to a burial chamber at the end of the passage. In the center of the chamber stood several ornate sarcophagi on a raised dais. They approached, and while Victor whispered lovingly, "Look at the scrollwork, Sherlock," his companion had already approached the center coffin, raised slightly higher than the others.

"It's this one."

Together they pushed the lid of the sarcophagus until it slid off with a groan and a prodigious screech, then a deep-toned _splonk_ as it slipped with finality under the surface of the oily water.

Inside the sarcophagus lay a well-decomposed figure in armor and helm, clutching to his skeletal breast the remains of a stone shield.

"It's him," breathed Victor. "It's really him."

"Look," Sherlock replied. "The shield. It's the same writing as on the tablet back at Frankland's house. The shield is the second marker!"

He pulled a folded sheet from his breast pocket—a rubbing he'd made from Frankland's tablet—and matched the writing as perfectly as he could, then quickly transferred the writing on the shield onto the remainder of the paper.

"Look at you!" Victor exclaimed. "You're practically giddy!"

Sherlock had to admit, he was smiling, and he cast a quick sidelong look at Victor, punctuated by a chuckle. "The thrill of discovery. Surely you feel the same."

Victor only smiled in response, his blue eyes twinkling in the torch-light.

But then—a strange, deep-throated _whoom_, almost like distant thunder, followed by the rush of oncoming noise, as if the thunder were rolling down the passage toward them, and Sherlock realized only seconds before it was too late—"Dive!"

He leaped off the sarcophagus and gave it a mighty shove. He could hear the chorus of terrified rats squealing by the hundreds to escape the oncoming death-blossom, then he and Victor dove under the rancid water just as a rush of hungry flames roared into the small chamber and filled it instantly with heat, light, and the smell of burning fur.

Sherlock and Victor surfaced under the space created by the upturned coffin, and caught their breath for only a few seconds before desperate rats began to join them by the dozens. Victor looked about him in alarm as rats began to claw at his shoulders, earlobes, and hair. "Sherlock…"

Sherlock looked about the tiny space, then said, "Stay here."

"What?"

Sherlock dove and vanished, but re-surfaced moments later, as Victor was striving to pull hysterical rats from his tangled curls, and said, "Deep breath. Follow me." He dove again, and Victor seemed only too glad to follow.

Sherlock had found an access drain to the sewers, and though it was not a pleasant swim, it didn't take them long to surface again in a location that boasted a ladder to the street. Sherlock was a bit surprised to find that they were climbing out of the sewer-drain in the exact piazza they had crossed only a bit earlier on their way to the library. The nearby diners gasped in horror at the sight of the two men emerging from the man-hole, drenched and smelling of sewage, petroleum, and who knew what else, but Sherlock could only happily inhale the warm, fragrant air of the city and muse, "Ah, Venice."

"Come on," Victor said, taking his hand and pulling him along. He looked back to see that two men in fezzes, guns drawn, were now pursuing them across the piazza.

They found themselves beside a dock, and the only means of escape appeared to be via motorboat. They leaped aboard, cast the rope, and started the engine. Victor steered the little boat away from the dock, but not before one man had leapt onto the stern and several more had engaged their own boats not far behind.

The man in the fez—a Turk, Sherlock surmised by his face and his garb—stood up and before he could gain solid footing on the moving boat, Sherlock swung with a right hook that knocked the man off his feet—though sadly, not off the boat. He regained his footing quickly, before Sherlock could kick him or stomp a convenient body part, and as Sherlock swung again, he dodged and tucked a quick punch to Sherlock's ribs followed by a quick upper-cut to the jaw.

The swaying of the boat, however, kept him from establishing a good momentum, and the uppercut failed to have the knockout effect the man had been hoping for. Sherlock did, however, stumble backward, and the man took the opportunity to pull out a gun and begin to aim it. Sherlock grabbed his arm just as he began to fire, and the bullets pinged dangerously off the windscreen of the boat.

Victor ducked and gave one furious glance backwards at the two men. Sherlock shrugged at him, locked in struggle with the man for control of the man's gun-arm, and then noticed the direction in which they were heading—right between two huge freighters that were currently being pushed together by tugs.

"Are you crazy? Don't go between them!" he shouted over the roar of the engine, and Victor gave him a deranged look.

"Go between them? Are you crazy?"

Sherlock finally managed to sweep-kick the man off his feet and beat the gun from his hand. He then swung a left and got blocked, but pirouetted suddenly, pulling the man's arm down while simultaneously laying a vicious right-handed chop to the side of his head. The Turk fell and slid unceremoniously from the stern of the smooth wooden boat.

Sherlock's sense of accomplishment was short-lived, however, and he leapt into the seat beside Victor and wrenched the steering wheel away from his companion. "I said go around!"

"You said go between them!"

"I said _don't_ go between them!"

There was, however, no time to argue, as the small boat was already zooming smoothly into the tiny gap between the two freighters. One of the pursuing boats followed, but its luck ran out before Sherlock's and Victor's—the freighters came just a bit too close together, compressed the fuel tank, and—the resulting explosion seemed to propel Sherlock and Victor's boat even more quickly through the rapidly-shrinking space. Before they had time to even fear for their own lives, they were safely out the other side.

There was, however, another boat full of red fezzes, and the man who appeared to be in charge of that boat had a machine gun. Sherlock and Victor ducked quickly as the gunfire sprayed over their boat, which suddenly slowed to a gentle drift as the engine began spewing smoke and then caught fire. The enemy boat came abreast and before they could climb aboard, Sherlock leaped onto their boat and had tossed the lead's lieutenant off the side and grabbed the leader by the lapels.

They had cut power very close to the screws of a gigantic freighter, which chopped through the water like the blade of an enormous meat grinder. The powerless boat drifted into the suction created by the blade and it began to chop away at the stern, inch by inch. Sherlock wrestled the Turk onto his back and held him pinned to the stern, where the deadly blade came ever closer.

"Why are you trying to kill us?" he shouted at the man underneath him.

The man seemed curiously calm as he answered. "Because you are seeking the Grail."

"John Watson was looking for the Grail. Did you kill him, too?"

"No."

"You'd better talk, or you're dead. Tell me where he is. Tell me!"

"If you don't let go, Dr. Holmes, we'll both die."

"Then we'll die. Tell me where he is!"

"My soul is prepared, Dr. Holmes. How's yours?"

Sherlock looked into the man's eyes—so collected, so frank, almost…serene. He was truly unafraid to die. Sherlock wondered what this man knew that he didn't. But no matter…more relevantly, he knew that this man, with his whole and undoubting faith in a higher power, would tell him the truth, if he could only ask the right questions.

He leaned back and dragged the man up with him as he stood, safely clear of the inexorable propeller blades. Victor had managed to get their boat moving again, and pulled alongside just in time to collect them before the other boat collapsed entirely under the chop of the freighter's propeller.

As they returned to the dock, Sherlock turned to the olive-skinned man and said, "Who are you? Knights Templar?"

"My name is Kazim," he replied, opening his top button and revealing a double-barred cross tattooed on his chest just beneath his throat. "The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword has sought to protect the Grail for a thousand years."

"Is that why you were trying to kill us?"

"The secret of the Grail must be protected. My brothers and I are prepared to do anything to keep it safe."

The bumped the jetty gently, and Kazim stepped onto the dock. Sherlock stood and said, "I have no interest in the Grail. I'm only here to find John Watson."

Kazim gave a small nod. "In that case, God be with your quest. Your friend is being held in the Castle Brunwald on the German-Austrian border." He tipped his fez to Victor and turned, strolling away down the jetty as if nothing more exciting had just happened than a leisurely stroll along the canals.

Victor looked at Sherlock, who was frowning after Kazim. "Well, what now?"

Sherlock bit his lip, then stepped out of the boat, turned, and held his hand to Victor. "First, to Frankland's flat. Then away to Castle Brunwald!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_At Frankland's Apartments_

Sherlock had insisted—and Mike had agreed—that he should immediately bathe when they finally arrived at the elegant accommodations that Frankland had offered them. Victor had excused himself quickly into his own suite for similar reasons. Once Sherlock's underground adventures had been well and truly washed away, he and Mike traded stories of what had happened since Sherlock had vanished down the hole, and had a closer look at Sherlock's hard-won prize.

The rubbing from the top half of the tablet quickly revealed the name of a city. "Alexandretta," Sherlock murmured, wrapped in a thick, warm dressing gown and sipping tea.

Mike, holding an ice pack to his head where the Brethren had whacked him, said, "Wasn't Alexandretta destroyed?"

"Yes," Sherlock responded. "The Knights of the First Crusade laid siege to the city for over a year. The present city of Iskenderun is built on its ruins, as I recall." He frowned. "The direction on the tablet says 'Across the desert and through the mountain to the canyon of the crescent moon.' But it doesn't say if these are directions _to _Alexandretta, or from it."

"John would know," Mike mused. "Sherlock, he _did_ know! Look…" He sat up straight and flipped quickly through the pages of the Grail diary, his ice pack dropping into his lap. "His father made a map. A map with no names." Sherlock took the diary and examined the map, Mike tracing the route as he spoke. "Now, he knew there was a city with an oasis due east. Here. He knew the course turned south through the desert to a river, and the river led into the mountains. Here. Straight to the canyon. He knew everything except where to begin, the name of the city."

"Alexandretta," Sherlock murmured. He stood, looking intently at his friend and wishing that it were John he were speaking to—this time not a calling of his heart, but a practical one. Mike was completely untested in the field, and Sherlock suspected…but there was no help for it. "Mike, get hold of Lestrade. Tell him to meet you in Iskenderun."

"And you?"

"I'm going after John."

Sherlock went to his bedroom, but froze in the doorway. His room was in shambles. The mattress lay on the floor, his luggage was turned out, and every drawer stood open. He scanned the room quickly, frowning, and turned and walked down the short hallway to Victor's suite and knocked. "Victor?"

There was no answer. He turned the knob slowly and pushed open the door. Victor's room had been ransacked as well. He heard the faint, tinny sound of a victrola from the bathroom. He opened that door to find Victor facing the mirror, wearing a dark blue silk dressing gown and finishing up a shave. He started to see Sherlock in the mirror, then laughed at his skittishness.

"Sorry, I thought…What's wrong?"

Sherlock motioned him out into the bedroom. Victor stared in amazement at the wreck before him. "But I…we were just…" He rubbed a hand over his face.

"My room, too," Sherlock said.

"But what were they looking for?" Victor asked, frowning.

Sherlock pulled the Grail diary from inside his robe. "This."

Victor stared. "John's Grail diary. You had it all the time."

"Yes."

"You didn't trust me."

"No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I didn't know you," Sherlock said simply, turning away from him.

Victor grabbed his shoulder and spun Sherlock back to face him. "After all the work I've done to try and help you find your friend."

"What work?" Sherlock smirked. "I'm the one who was called in to do the _actual_ detective work here. And I very kindly let you tag along."

Victor took a step closer. "Oh, is that how it was? I thought I was the one pointing _you_ in the right direction!"

"Oh, stop," sneered Sherlock, leaning slightly forward. "You can't possibly be angry. You've had the time of your life today. You love the way I do things."

Their faces were now only inches apart.

"Well, you're just lucky I don't do things the same way," Victor said, his voice low and rumbling, his teeth bared. "Otherwise, you'd still be standing at the Venice pier."

Sherlock slipped a deliberate look down his companion's silk-clad body, then back up again. He tilted his head and smiled a predatory smile. "Just what do you think is happening here? A trip to Neverland? We've been shot at, nearly drowned, almost incinerated, and practically chopped into fish bait since we met. And yet here you are." His voice stayed low, even, and mesmerizing. "If you were truly worried about my methods, you'd have fled hours ago. You know as well as I do that something sinister is going on here, and that we may well be, like John, in over our heads. If you want to leave, you know where the door is."

They stared at each other for a very long moment, unmoving, jaws clenched. Then without warning, Victor's mouth was on Sherlock's, probing and sucking, tasting every molecule as if Sherlock's lips were the last drop of water in a desert oasis. He grabbed Sherlock's face in long, strong hands and Sherlock returned his interest, pressing his panting kisses hard against Victor's finely-fashioned mouth and lapping the relentless tongue with his own. He maneuvered Victor backwards toward the bed, both men making low, throaty noises in their mutual devouring.

Victor's legs bumped against the bed, and the two broke apart with a slight slurp. Sherlock regarded his companion for a moment—lips reddened with passion, loose curls clenched in Sherlock's fist, perfect mouth open and panting—and heard through the open window the song of a gondolier drifting up from the canal below. "Ah, Venice," Sherlock murmured with a grin, and pushed Victor backward onto the waiting duvet.

Later, as they melted into the soundless aftermath, Sherlock continued to stroke the other man's hair while staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. Victor snuggled a soft kiss into the hollow of Sherlock's collarbone, and gradually relaxed into a soft sprawl across him, slipping gently into an easy doze.

Even as his lover lay quieted in loose-limbed sleep, Sherlock lay awake long into the night, thinking…and wondering.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_Austria_

The castle stood, like the setting of a horror film, at the end of a long, winding road atop a steep mountain. To make the scene complete, Sherlock and Victor arrived in the midst of a violent storm. Sherlock stopped the car and peered out the windshield, considering.

"What do you know about this place?" he asked.

Victor shrugged. "I know that the Brunwalds are famous art collectors."

Sherlock bit his lip, then retrieved his whip from the back seat.

"What are you going to do?" Victor asked.

"Not sure," Sherlock murmured. He cocked one eyebrow at Victor, looking closely at the wool cap he was wearing. Victor gave him a side-eye and straightened his hat self-consciously. Sherlock grinned a lop-sided smile and said, "Come on."

* * *

><p>The butler for Castle Brunwald was tired of visitors.<p>

It was the reason he'd been glad at first to hear that the castle would be used as a base of military operations—it would, at least, put a stop to all the pesky tourists that usually hung on the door-knocker. Absolute riff-raff, they were, and he was glad to be shot of them.

So he was immediately suspicious when the two strangers—and such strange strangers at that—showed up at the door demanding to see the tapestries.

They were both tall and suave-looking, very likely to be bored university students on holiday—with their British arrogance!—the taller one smiling stupidly and the paler one bouncing about on his heels, asking if the butler had a handkerchief, there's a "good chappie." _Ugh._ But it wasn't until the pale one—who sneezed his preposterous British germs all over the butler without so much as an apology, much less a handkerchief—claimed to be titled—the very notion!—the butler knew these people were most definitely _not_ here to see tapestries.

It was unfortunate that this was his last thought for a good while.

* * *

><p>Inside the castle, Sherlock and Victor eased silently along a passageway, Sherlock having deduced the wing of the castle in which John was most likely to be found.<p>

If he was surprised to see a military control room filled with Nazis, he didn't show it. He did, however, clench his jaw and whisper, "Nazis. Oh, how I hate Nazis."

Further down the passage, Sherlock paused next to a closed door, and without looking up, he said, "John's in this room."

Victor stared. "How do you know?"

"Because," Sherlock murmured through clenched teeth, and jerked his head briefly upward, "it's wired."

Sure enough, there were electrical wires running around the doorframe and attaching to the door itself, ready to trip an alarm if the door were opened.

"Right," Victor mumbled, his face pinking slightly.

Sherlock walked to the next door, paused, and then knocked quietly.

There was no response. He turned to Victor and said, "Wait here," then disappeared into the empty room.

He peered through the tall, narrow window. John's room was two windows to the left, but as Sherlock had hoped, the turrets of the castle would provide just the prop he needed to get into John's room without alerting the enemy. He opened the latched panes and swung them outward, lashed his bullwhip upward across the gap between turrets, wrapping it snugly around the telephone wires leading to the window of the neighboring room. He then swung easily over to a stone gargoyle on the turret opposite. He braced for a moment, steadying his footing on the rain-slicked stone, and then swung back across the gap toward John's window, crashing unceremoniously through the closed wooden shutters of the room and tumbling onto the floor.

The room was dark, of course, as the storm was still raging outside, and while Sherlock was gathering his bearings, he heard someone sneaking up behind him. He barely had time to register the impending attack before his reflexes kicked in and he quickly lunged to the side, dodging either a chop to the neck or a throttle-hold from the unseen attacker, depending on the man's mood.

Sherlock rolled to a crouch on his feet and said, "John?"

The looming silhouette paused.

"…Sherlock?"

"Yes," said Sherlock, letting out a long-held breath and getting to his feet. "I'm here—"

The rest of his sentence was lost as John Watson applied a vicious downward-swinging left hook to Sherlock's face.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" John cried.

"Shhhhh," Sherlock urged as effectively as he could with a sore jaw and blood in his mouth.

"Oh, you pop up out of the blue after nearly three years, and I'm supposed to shush?" John hissed into the darkness, the side of his face illuminated briefly by a flash of lightning from the window beyond.

"I came to find you," Sherlock said, rubbing his aching face.

"Did you now?" John said, nodding to the walls and shaking his head in a gesture Sherlock found achingly familiar. "Well done, then. You found me. Brilliant. Now what?"

Sherlock stood again, this time feeling a bit less steady at the task, and said, "Now, we get the hell out of here." He pulled a Derringer from the waistband of his pants and cocked it.

John stared at him, that dangerous smile that Sherlock knew so well playing at his lips, a cascade of emotions warring for control of his face. He finally nodded and said, "That sounds…bloody perfect. Let's go, then."

Sherlock nearly grinned as John turned toward the window. But too late. The door swung open and several Nazi soldiers entered, holding automatic guns and glaring. "You will give the book to me," one of them said in thickly-accented English.

Sherlock and John held hands up and said in unison, "What book?"

"You have the diary in your pocket."

John huffed loudly. "You dolt! You don't seriously think he would have brought the diary all the way back here!" He glanced at Sherlock, giving a short laugh, but Sherlock wasn't moving or speaking. John's smile faded. "My God…" John murmured finally.

Sherlock glanced at him sidelong but didn't reply.

John glared at Sherlock. "I can't believe you brought the diary here. Why the bloody hell do you think I sent it to you? I should have sent to the Marx Brothers!"

Sherlock turned to face him. "John, now is hardly the time for your hysterics. We need to—"

"My—_my_ hysterics?" John's smile was looking extremely dangerous again. "That's funny because as I recall, I'm not the drama queen here, Mr. Can't-Be-Wrong. Who was it that threw a fit about that empty chamber at the dig in Cambodia? Or the time you drugged me so we could get past those Aburra who seemed to think you were some sort of god? Or maybe that time you—"

"Yes, John, fine," shouted Sherlock, "but now's hardly the time to reiterate all my faults. We simply haven't the time!"

"You bet your arse we haven't the time, because let me tell you, that list would take a good long—weeks, it would take weeks, Mister Sherlock 'My-Brain's-Too-Big-for-You-Ordinary-People' Holmes!"

"Could you please stop with the name-calling John? It's starting to grate on my nerves!" With that, John ducked and Sherlock lunged at the Nazi nearest him, while John head-butted the other in the solar plexus. Sherlock wrested the gun from his soldier first, and turned the gun on both of the men, motioning for them to get into the closet.

John took the gun from the second soldier as the two men backed, stumbling, into the tiny broom-closet. John then braced the door with a chair and he and Sherlock exited the room, now both armed and creeping cautiously along the passage. Sherlock felt a brief thrill of memory. This was, quite literally, just like old times.

"Victor?" Sherlock whispered into the darkness of the corridor, and John gave him an odd look.

"Victor's with you?"

"I left him here," Sherlock murmured. He then stopped and straightened, listening, thinking. He could hear the sounds of muffled thumps and grunts—as of someone being beaten. He followed the sound, with John trailing, and stopped outside a door.

"Sherlock…" John tried to whisper, but Sherlock shook his head. After a moment, he nodded once toward the door that they faced.

The two men looked at each other, then John gave a short answering nod, and they entered side-by-side, guns sweeping the space in front of them.

"Stop!" Sherlock barked, and the scene before them froze mid-action. Two soldiers were in the midst of kicking someone who was hunched on the floor, gasping for breath. Another man stood behind them, watching. He was slender, grey-haired, with ice-blue eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles. He had a trim, goatee-style beard and the coldest expression Sherlock had ever seen. His eyes looked almost…dead, Sherlock thought, like the blank gaze of a shark. He wore the uniform of a Nazi Major General.

He could also see now that the man slumped on the floor, blood visible in his now-tangled curls, was Victor.

"Herr Doktor Holmes," the General said with a slight smile. "Welcome to Austria. I trust you've enjoyed your stay thus far?"

Sherlock and John stood side by side, guns pointed. Sherlock raised his chin slightly, and said, "Your hospitality leaves something to be desired, I'm afraid."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the man said, still smiling, though solely with his mouth. The rest of his face remained unmoving, and his eyes gleamed now with something that might have been madness. "I wonder how accommodating you will be in return, then, when I tell you to give me the book."

"What book?" Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The diary, Doctor Holmes. Surely an intelligent man such as yourself has no need to play games. Give me the diary and your friend will live." He grabbed Victor's hair and pulled his head sharply back, then pressed a gun behind Victor's ear. Sherlock could see now the blood, the cuts, the bruises that marred Victor's handsome face, could see the evidence of bruising and blood on the knuckles of both the soldiers that stood now with guns trained on the two Englishmen, saw bits of blood and possibly hair on the butt of one of the guns.

John was looking at Sherlock now, frowning.

"What makes you think I have the diary?"

"I don't think you have the diary. I know you do. It's in your pocket. You will give it to me," the General said in a reasonable, even tone. "You will give it to me now or your little pet will die."

"He won't do it," John murmured to Sherlock.

Victor's less-bruised eye opened slightly to regard Sherlock. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Look," crooned the General bending so that his face was near to Victor's. "He's sorry. His brains shall be quite sorry when they have been spread about the room because of you, don't you think, Doctor Holmes?"

He pressed the gun harder, tightened his grip on Victor's hair, and Victor gasped audibly. A tear trickled out of the corner of his open eye.

"Don't trust him," whispered John.

"Now, Doctor Holmes. Just…now." The General rubbed the muzzle of the gun down Victor's face and slipped it between the cut and bleeding lips. Victor gave a slight whimper.

"All right," Sherlock finally said, louder than was necessary in the small room. "Fine. Leave him alone." He tossed his gun to the floor and nodded to John, who did the same with a grimace.

The General smiled and let Victor go, allowing him to fall forward on to the floor.

"I wouldn't be too concerned about him," John said coolly watching Victor struggle to stand. "He's a Nazi."

Sherlock didn't respond. Victor was finally able to stand on rather shaky legs and stumble to Sherlock, where he clung briefly and whispered, "I'm sorry..." Then he leaned back slowly, pulling the diary from Sherlock's breast pocket. "…but you should have listened to Dr. Watson."

Victor backed away slowly, eyes locked on Sherlock's, his bruised mouth curling into the slightest of smiles as he turned away to present the diary to the General.

The General smirked and turned, saying, "Bring them!" in German to the soldiers, who lowered their guns and grabbed Sherlock and John, pinning their arms behind them and hustling them along after the General and the still slightly wobbly Victor.

"Nice job on the rescue, by the way," John growled as they lurched along the corridor, shoved by their captors.

Sherlock didn't speak, his frown only growing deeper, his eyes on the back of Victor's head.

They were taken to a large room that had probably been a dining room in the castle's heyday, Sherlock thought, with a long table in the center of the room, a fireplace fit for roasting pigs on one side, and heavy, floor-length curtains covering the windows on the other. Suits of armor stood in the corners, and Sherlock noted bemusedly that several large, gorgeous tapestries hung on the walls. Someone was sitting in the chair at the head of the table, facing away from the room. The General and Victor approached and handed the diary to the unseen figure.

The soldiers forced Sherlock and John into chairs and tied them together, back to back.

Sherlock could practically feel the fumes emanating from John. He sighed.

"Oh, go on, then."

John exploded into a storm of frantic hissing. "What in the world were you thinking, bringing the diary back here? And what was all that about sacrificing the diary to save the life of a _Nazi_? Oh, don't listen to me, I was just your—partner for two years, and a damn good archaeologist, too, no reason to give two hoots what I say! I can see nothing has changed about you, nothing."

Sherlock closed his eyes, his jaw clenching. John's stumble on the word _partner_ had not escaped him, but neither had the deeper dig about the difficulties of Sherlock's personality that had driven them apart. "They were going to take the diary regardless. That repugnant General might have shot Victor just to make a point, whether or not I agreed to give it to them."

"Well, yes, alright, but…"

"Wait…how did you know Victor was working with them?"

John gave a little jerk of his head, a bit like a shrug. "Talks in his sleep."

Sherlock gaped at the curtain in front of him for a moment, then straightened as best he could and said, "Oh."

John gave a mirthless chuckle. "You too, eh? That explains a lot. Including how the fact that he's a Nazi could have escaped your notice."

"It didn't escape my notice, thank you very much."

"Oh, so you're starting to date Nazis now, eh? That's a novel approach, even for you."

"The beating was real. I thought perhaps he…"

John shook his head. "You thought he might have refused to betray you. What is this? How did you used to put it? _Sentiment_?"

Sherlock grimaced at the curtain, but said nothing.

"So, it's finally happened," John mused. "Sherlock Holmes has gone soft. What a change. Certainly never would have happened back in the old days. I of all people should know."

"John, I—"

"Oh, come on. It's too good. The great Sherlock Holmes, bested by a pretty face?" John snorted. "I mean, I thought he was gorgeous, too, but I didn't trust him. Why did you?"

"Because he didn't take my advice," said the man in the chair. He stood and turned, approaching them with the same pliant smile he had worn when Sherlock had last seen him.

"Frankland."

"Didn't I warn you not to trust anybody, Dr. Holmes?" Frankland flipped through the diary eagerly.

"I thought you were a connoisseur of antiquities, not a trained monkey for the Fuhrer," Sherlock sneered. "I mean, I knew you'd sell your mother for an Etruscan vase, but to debase yourself by associating with this…scum?" He cast a withering look at the General, who only stared back with that blank, empty gaze.

"Feeling bitter in defeat are we, Dr. Holmes?" Frankland said, still flipping through the diary. But then his smile suddenly vanished. "Dr. Trevor, there are pages missing from this book."

Victor stepped forward, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. "What?"

"This book contained a map—a map with no names—precise directions from the unknown city to the secret Canyon of the Crescent Moon." Frankland turned to Sherlock.

"So it did," Sherlock said silkily.

"What have you done with those pages, Dr. Holmes?"

But Victor let out a long sigh. "You're wasting your breath, Dr. Frankland. He won't tell us. And he doesn't have to... it's perfectly obvious where the pages are." He looked at Sherlock. "He's given them to Mike Stamford."

"Oh God," John whispered. "Mike's with you? Why on earth did you drag him into this?"

Frankland shrugged. "He sticks out like a sore thumb. We'll find him."

It was Sherlock's turn to smirk. "The hell you will. He's got a two-day head-start on you, which is more than he needs. Mike's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan. He speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom. He'll blend in. Disappear. You'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the Grail already."

A servant appeared with a tray of iodine and witch hazel. She deposited the tray on the table near Victor, then pulled a telegram out of her pocket and handed it to the General. She curtsied briefly, and departed. Victor wet a cloth with some witch hazel and applied it to the corner of his mouth gently as the General read the telegram.

"Doctor Trevor. Message from Berlin. You must return immediately: a rally at the Institute of Aryan Culture." He smiled coldly at Victor. "Your presence is requested on the platform…at the highest level."

Victor looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you, Herr Oberst Magnussen." He turned to Frankland. "I'll meet you in Iskenderun."

Frankland held out the diary. "Take this to the Reich Museum in Berlin. It will show them our progress, ahead of schedule, at least. I'm afraid without the map, it's little more than a souvenir."

"And what of them?" Magnussen asked, hands folded in front of him.

"They have outlived their usefulness, surely," Frankland began, but Victor held up a hand.

"Wait. If we fail to recover the missing pages, we'll need them alive," he said, dabbing at a cut on his cheekbone.

Frankland shrugged. "As the Doctor orders." He then turned to Magnussen and the two men exited together, speaking in low voices.

Victor turned to Sherlock. "Well, at least it's not goodbye yet, then."

"And why not? Why save us when you won't even save yourself from a real beating?"

Victor frowned and glanced briefly downward. "Well, you would have been hard to convince otherwise. You're quite difficult to fool."

"Is that the only reason?"

Victor looked at him probingly. "Is that concern for me, Sherlock?" He gave a small smile and approached, leaning his hands on the arms of the chair Sherlock was tied to and brushing his lips softly against Sherlock's ear. "You do still care, then?"

"Does it really matter?" Sherlock murmured in return.

Victor looked him in the eye for a moment, then leaned in close, his eyes on Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock drew himself back far enough that his head bumped against John's, and he felt John turn to see what was happening.

"Oh, don't mind me," John said. "Just do whatever it is you're gonna do, sure. I mean, why should you care if I'm here, you never did. Although I might point out that I got there first, for once." Sherlock frowned and half-turned toward him, but Victor put a hand to his cheek and pivoted Sherlock's face forward, then gently pressed his lips to Sherlock's for a long, gentle moment.

He slowly drew back and whispered, "That's how we say good-bye in Austria."

He turned and walked out, straightening his jacket as he went. He gestured to the soldiers standing guard to follow him, and one of them turned back to Sherlock with a smirk. He leaned in and said, "And this is how Germans say good-bye!" He snapped the butt-end of his gun against Sherlock's face, and Sherlock's skull cracked audibly against John's. The guards left, laughing, while Sherlock and John both shook their heads dazedly.

"I liked the Austrian way better," Sherlock murmured.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

_Castle Brunwald_

"I liked the Austrian way better," Sherlock murmured, and John said, "So did I."

Sherlock huffed. John chuckled.

"Oh, don't like that, do you? That I was able to get some of the same action as the great Sherlock Holmes? That he actually noticed _me_? Well, at least until you showed up, that is." He frowned, tugging at the ropes binding his wrists to the chair. "Of course, in retrospect, he was probably just trying to distract me from the truth, just as he's done with you."

"If you think I was taken in by—"

"Sherlock, admit it. You bought the act. You swallowed it hook, line, and—"

"Now's hardly the time, John. We need to get out of here and find Mike before they do."

"I thought you said he'd be fine, that he could find the Grail by himself."

"Oh, God, John, I was lying. You know Mike. He got lost in the university library once."

"Yeah, alright, I see your point. So what's the plan, genius?"

"Can you reach my left jacket-pocket?"

"Yeah, I think so," said John, struggling to inch his tied wrists down and back toward Sherlock's open pocket. He finally got his fingertips inside, and said, "What am I looking for?"

"You'll know it when you find it."

"Feels like a cigarette lighter." He pulled it out, and it was, indeed, a shiny silver lighter—the same one Victor had used in the tunnels underneath Venice.

"Can you burn through the ropes?" Sherlock asked.

John nodded. "Yeah—yeah. Good thinking." He flicked open the lighter and clicked it on. Unfortunately, the flame came too close to his awkwardly-positioned hand, and he inadvertently jerked. The lighter went flying. It landed, still lit, a few feet away near one of the wooden chairs.

"Damn it," he breathed.

"What?"

"Um. Bad news."

"Yes?"

"Dropped it."

Sherlock groaned.

"And also, the floor's on fire."

"What?"

"Annnnd the chair."

Sherlock swore loudly and said, "Alright, on three, we move toward the fireplace. One, two, three!"

They hopped and scooted their bound chairs in the direction of the fireplace, taking several minutes to find a coordination of effort that worked, and by the time they had reached the fireplace, the rug, curtains, and part of the dining table were also ablaze. The ropes had loosened during their journey across the room and they were both squirming and struggling to loosen them further.

Suddenly and without warning, the floor beneath them began to move. The entire firebox was rotating inside the fireplace like an enormous lazy susan. Sherlock gave an exclamation and John said, "I think I bumped something."

They found themselves facing an entirely new room, this one crawling with uniformed Nazis all working around central maps on tables, communication equipment and quiet efficiency filling every corner of the space. At first no one noticed the two men in the fireplace, and John frantically tried to repeat whatever it was he'd done to trigger the rotation and Sherlock struggling with the ropes. But it didn't take long for a Nazi working nearby—a woman with a headset and tightly-wound hair—to spy them. They froze, hoping against hope that she might allow them a moment of dignity before—but no.

First, she laughed.

Then she screamed "Alarm!"

The response was instantaneous—guards were charging into the room with guns ready. John at last found the lever—he'd assumed it was a flue-lever—that triggered the archway and they rotated away just in time. They flung themselves sideways out of the fireplace and very nearly into the fire, but the ropes at last had loosened enough to finally be pulled off over their heads.

John was looking about the inferno-filled room for a safe escape, when Sherlock yelled and pointed to the fireplace—the lever was slowly depressing again. Sherlock leaped onto the spinning platform just as it rotated, and the guard who came through got brained by a bust of Hitler, expertly wielded by John Watson. By the time the platform rotated once more, it contained only a quickly-slumping Nazi soldier, similarly attacked by Sherlock.

Who was now trapped in the Nazi room on the other side.

John pushed the lever again, this time prepared for when Sherlock came through, and once Sherlock was clear, he wedged the bust into the gap to prevent the door from swinging inward again. Then he took Sherlock's hand and led him through the least-flame-engulfed part of the room and out into the hallway, where they coughed and sputtered the smoke from their lungs, looking around for a safe way out of the castle.

Nazis were approaching from the left, toward the front door. The only way to go was up the long servants' staircase, which wound its way to a tiny room at the very top of the castle. Once at the top, they could see no further doors.

"They're coming, Sherlock! What do we do?"

Sherlock looked about, wide-eyed. "No, no, there has to be a way out. They wouldn't have built it like this, there has to be a way…" He kicked at the small window, but it was thick, leaded glass permanently set into the frame and had no mechanism for opening.

Sherlock glanced at John, who gave him an _are-you-serious_ look and said, "I've got nothing to hold them off with." He leaned against the wall, breathing hard and looking resigned.

"I know, I know," Sherlock muttered, feeling along the walls for a secret panel. He gave the room several penetrating stares, and suddenly shouted, "Ha!" He kicked at the chair sitting next to John, and it leaned back but did not fall. The wall John was leaning on shifted, collapsing inward to reveal a spiral staircase leading downward. John fell as the wall disappeared, rolling out of sight down the staircase.

"Sherlooooock…!"

The chair slowly righted itself, the lever attached to its foot disappearing smoothly into a hole in the floor.

"Brilliant!" Sherlock shouted admiringly, and followed John down the staircase.

They emerged near the kitchens in the back of the castle and ran out toward the boat dock. John headed for a boat, but Sherlock—not eager for another boat-chase—exclaimed "No!" He looked about and saw a large storage crate marked "Motorrad" on the side.

John gave a one-sided grin and said, "Just another typical day with Sherlock Holmes, eh?" He rolled his eyes and helped Sherlock pry open the crate.

Within seconds, Nazis were streaming out the back doors of the castle as the two Englishmen rode away triumphantly on a motorcycle, John ensconced in the sidecar and looking a bit disgruntled.

It took a few moments for new pursuers to catch up to them, but—not being limited by a sidecar—they were faster and more maneuverable than Sherlock and John. There were only four of them, though, and Sherlock thought that was a stroke of luck, really.

He felt less lucky when he realized they were approaching a barricade flanked by guards. Sherlock sped up to ensure they could break the barrier with ease—which they did—and John took the opportunity to snap off a flagpole as they passed. He handed it to Sherlock, who grinned and tucked it under his arm, jousting-style. One of the motorcyclists had found a shortcut and was now attempting to cut them off, but Sherlock unseated him easily with his makeshift lance as they sped past.

The motorcycle continued on past them without its rider and then flipped suddenly sideways, skidding into the path of the oncoming cyclists. Two bikes went down, but the fourth rider dodged the wreckage handily and charged onward toward Sherlock and John. He caught up to them quickly and pulled out his gun, cocking the hammer and aiming. Sherlock thrust the flagpole into the spokes of the bike-wheel and it flipped, arcing high into the air and coming down with a sickening crunch. Sherlock and John looked back for a moment, then exchanged a grin.

Sherlock refused to notice the fluttering in his chest at the look.

* * *

><p>No more cyclists came after them as they wound their way down the mountainside. Sherlock actually found himself enjoying the scenery as they gradually drove out of the Alps and into flatter, more agrarian countryside.<p>

At a crossroads, they stopped to rest, pulled the bike off the path and found a stream from which they could have a cool drink and a quick wash.

Sherlock scrubbed ice-cold water through his sooty, sweat-matted hair, then watched as John did the same. There was a long silence as they sat in the sun by the stream, warming themselves, words hovering unspoken in the air between them.

Sherlock broke it softly with, "John…"

"Okay. Look," John said in a low voice. "I admit I was not thrilled to see you popping through that window back there…you, of all the people who could have come. But…I am grateful for the rescue. Thanks."

"You're most welcome," Sherlock answered, his voice equally low. "And I'm…sorry."

"About the diary?"

"About…everything."

John looked into the distance, nodding and licking his lips. "You're only just sorry now? It's been nearly three years, Sherlock. Without a word, without a sign, only…you, saying you'd be gone for a while. A note left under that blasted skull—which, by the way, I didn't find until I'd turned out all of Scotland Yard trying to find you the week after you left. Mike finally told me you'd gone on sabbatical, but he wouldn't say where."

Sherlock was frowning into the grass. "I know, I know."

"Yeah, sure, you know. You know bloody everything. The trouble is, I don't. I don't know what happened, I don't know why you left, I don't know anything at all—"

"You needed me gone," Sherlock interrupted, his voice ringing in the stillness. A few birds tittered and flew away from the trees nearby.

John stared. "I need—sorry, what?"

Sherlock stood up and faced away from John. "You weren't happy. I was the cause of the unhappiness. Thus, I had to leave. Simple logic. I thought I said as much in the note."

John's mouth hung open a second. He stood, too, and said, "Note? The bloody note just said, 'Good-bye, John. I hope this fixes everything. Be well.' That was it! From _that_ I was supposed to extrapolate that you thought you were doing me a favor?"

Sherlock's voice was low again. "I'm sorry I couldn't have written more."

"You're sorry again. Great. Where was your sorrow when I was falling apart, Sherlock?" John's voice had dropped to a furious whisper now. "Your little disappearing act didn't fix anything, Sherlock. It _broke_ me."

The corners of Sherlock's mouth drew downward, and he said after a moment, "I was incapable of meeting your emotional needs. I am still. I am…a machine, as you've said so many times, a machine married to my work. I had thought that you knew this when we…but obviously it was something that only became clear after two years of…unhappiness. It had to stop. I couldn't keep hurting you."

"Well, leaving me wasn't the way to accomplish that."

Sherlock turned. "Staying was worse."

"How would you know?" John shouted. "You weren't there to see what your leaving did to me!"

Sherlock found difficulty controlling his breathing. "I didn't know what to do. I still don't. If I couldn't stay and I couldn't go, what could I have done?"

"You do what people do, Sherlock, when they love someone," John said. "You stay and work it out. You…hammer through it, bit by bit. It's not easy, this caring lark. But you don't just run away. Not if you love someone. And I guess that was the problem, wasn't it? You didn't really—"

"No," Sherlock said quickly, his head raising, his chin raised defiantly. "Don't say it. I did. I do. I always will."

He and John stared at one another for a very long moment, so long Sherlock began to dare hope John might say something that would open the door to reparation. He did not expect John to fall weeping into his arms (though he had to admit, that hopeful image had been—annoyingly—distracting his thoughts ever since he'd left England), but to think he might be forgiven—this hope was hammering his heart against his ribcage so hard he thought he might burst.

He tried to say something, anything, but before his mouth could form a single word, John turned away and said, "Well, that's going to make things a bit hard for you and your new Nazi boyfriend, then, isn't it?"

Sherlock frowned. "What?"

"Let's see how I can do with deductions now, shall we? I can only guess," said John, pacing now and delivering the words as if he were giving a lecture to one of his classes, "that you brought the diary back with you because you wanted to go for the Grail yourself, and then you met Victor, and…well. I'm sure that now you two boys wonder have gotten together you'll surely find it in two shakes. No doubt the two of you will be very happy."

"John, your _power_ of deduction, as ever, leaves much to be desired," Sherlock said, his temper rising again. "If you hadn't noticed, Victor has gone to Berlin to hold hands with the Fuhrer. And—honestly, boyfriend? He was a convenient means to—"

"Oh, no," John shook his hand at Sherlock, waving him into silence. "No, don't try to tell me you didn't fall for him. I know you too well."

"I thought it would be expedient to go along with his—"

"Nope," John snapped, crossing his arms. "Stop tossing the shit, Sherlock."

Sherlock drew himself up to his full height and said, "I knew there was a possibility the entire job was a setup from the moment Frankland sent me to fetch you. There was also, conversely, always the chance that Victor was sincere, but, being Austrian, if the Nazis wanted to pressure him, he'd have had little choice but to comply. Don't you agree?"

"We always have a choice not to comply," John said flatly, his eyebrows forming a dangerous line.

Sherlock hated the little skip his heart—and other parts—gave when John used that tone. "Not every man is as…stubborn as you are, John. Or as brave." The last part was added in a mutter, but there was no doubt John heard it, given the colour of his cheeks now.

"As for the diary," Sherlock went on, "yes, I had agreed to hunt down the Grail for Frankland. Mike seemed to think you'd be…highly disappointed if I refused to."

John leaned his weight on one leg and looked speculative. "Did he."

Sherlock bent to pick up his bomber jacket and hat from where he'd lain them on the grass, but he didn't answer.

"So…" John said, "are you? Going for the Grail?"

"Now that we know Frankland's a traitor, I suppose we have the option of heading home with a clear conscience."

John huffed and threw his head back. "I knew you'd say that, I knew…"

"So Mike was right. You are disappointed."

"You know, Sherlock, I used to think you were the most brilliant archaeologist who ever lived. And you are, you're bloody brilliant. But there's one thing you miss in our profession."

"Please enlighten me." Sherlock was a little sorry that it came out as sarcasm.

"The faith people have in what we find," John replied. "The realisation that these artifacts inspire people. That they have a power that defies your notions of science."

Sherlock made a rude noise and rolled his eyes.

"Yes," John said, pointing, "that. Exactly the attitude I meant. Sherlock, it doesn't matter what you—or I, for that matter—actually believe about the Grail. What matters is that Hitler is bent on getting the cup, and that many, many people understand why, and that as long as they have the diary, there's a chance it may happen."

"Hitler can go f—wait. What? The diary? I thought…" He narrowed his eyes. "John, what else was in the diary?"

"Don't tell me you didn't read it."

Sherlock pressed his lips together and said, "I didn't have the time." _And I was preoccupied with thoughts of you._

"Well, that's just great. I'm off on a highly dangerous quest with an uninformed genius who thinks what we're doing is based on nonsense."

"That's why we need the Grail expert, remember? I thought we wouldn't need the diary if we had you!" Sherlock growled. They stared at one another for a moment, then Sherlock said, "Why don't you tell me what it is we're missing in that blessed diary, then?"

"Once we get through the Canyon of the Crescent Moon to the final resting place of the Grail, there will be three tests of…of bravery and cunning. We have to pass the tests in order to reach the Grail."

"And what are they, these tests?"

"Well, I don't remember!" John said, exasperated. "That's why I had Dad's diary!"

"So you're suggesting we have to go into Berlin, to a Nazi rally attended by der Fuhrer himself, to retrieve the diary because _you_ didn't read it, either?"

"I _read_ it, I just don't remember it. There are clues in there as to how the tests can be passed. I assumed you'd read it and commit it to that bloody mind palace of yours, not run it all the way back to the very people I was trying to save it from."

"Well, it's high time you accepted the fact that I'm not perfect."

John laughed now, bending over at the waist and pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead. "Oh my God, Sherlock, have you even been listening to anything I've said?"

Sherlock glared with narrowed eyes. "Yes, alright, we don't need to go on beating that particular dead horse. Let's get on with it, then. To Berlin we go." He walked over to the bike and began pushing it toward the road. "I only hope Mike is faring better than we are."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

_Iskenderun_

Mike had never before so strongly wished that he spoke Arabic.

He could have coped quite adequately—even smoothly—with German or French or Classical Greek (possibly even Latin), but the jumble of syllables about him was nearly as confusing as the random accostings he was suffering at the hands of apparently well-meaning people. Someone had offered him a glass of cloudy water; another had tried to hand him a live chicken. He tried as politely as possible to assure people he really only wanted someone who spoke English (or even Classical Greek), but to no avail whatsoever.

Until suddenly a friendly face emerged from the crowd in front of him—the tanned, handsome visage of Greg Lestrade.

"Doctor Stamford, I presume?" he said with a wry grin and clapped Mike's shoulders in a traditional Arab greeting—naturally foregoing the cheek-kisses in deference to the English sensibility.

"Oh, thank heaven, Lestrade," Mike breathed. "What a relief."

"Good to see you, too, mate," Lestrade said, smiling. "Where's Sherlock?"

"He's in Austria, or at least, I think he still is," Mike said, still disconcerted by the shuffling crowd and the overly-friendly people attempting to accost him. "Slight…detour."

"So you're on your own?" Lestrade asked in surprise.

"Yes, but it's all under control," Mike said, waving away a woman who was inspecting his clothing quite closely. "Have you arranged our supplies?"

"Yeah, of course. But where are we going?"

"This map will show you," Mike said, reaching into his breast-pocket. "It was drawn by…"

A man had suddenly positioned himself in front of Mike and Lestrade. He was crisply-dressed and wore round wire-rimmed spectacles. He clicked his heels together and bowed, nearly clipping Mike in the nose with his short-brimmed hat.

"Doctor Stamford?" he asked in an unmistakably German accent.

Mike tucked the map back into his pocket and didn't say anything, giving Lestrade a sidelong glance. "Er…yes."

The man continued. "Welcome to Iskenderun. The Director of the Museum of Antiquities has sent a car for you."

"Oh…yes? Well, then, your servant, sir."

Lestrade stepped slightly forward, positioning his shoulder in front of Mike's. "And I'm his."

"Follow me, please," the German man said, and turned.

Mike raised his eyebrows and said, "I guess my reputation precedes me, eh?"

Lestrade only frowned. "There is no museum in Iskenderun," he said quietly and conversationally.

But the German man had heard him. He turned and accosted Lestrade suddenly. "Papers, please."

Lestrade patted the front of his white linen jacket. "Oh, yeah, papers…of course." He leaned over slightly and whispered, "Run."

Mike blinked for a moment, then looked at him. "Er…"

Lestrade smiled broadly and continued to feel around his pockets. He at last pulled out a folded newspaper and said, "Paper, sir. Got it here. Egyptian Mail, morning edition. Not much use, though, without the cricket scores…_run!"_

Mike blinked again. "Did you, er, say…"

Lestrade held the paper up in front of the German man and yelled "Run!" just as he punched the man through the newspaper.

The man fell backward and Lestrade grabbed Mike's arm. They took off through the crowd as quickly as the milling bodies would allow.

They turned a corner, but Lestrade knew it was too late to reach any of his known safe-houses. He saw a curtained door nearby and decided to improvise. "Okay, in there," he urged Mike. "Go on."

Mike disappeared through the curtain without hesitation, and Lestrade turned, ready to draw off their pursuers so that he could come back later to collect his friend.

Yet behind him he heard the roar of a truck engine, and he turned back to the curtained door just in time to see a large truck pulling away from the façade that he had mistaken for the door to a house. He ran a few yards after the truck before realizing it was no use. He slumped against the false door-frame in defeat, watching the truck disappear into its own dust-cloud.

He had found Mike, then lost Mike. Sherlock was going to be _so_ brassed off.

* * *

><p><em>Berlin<em>

Victor stood where he had been told to. Victor had shaken all the hands of the important people around him, and had smiled and accepted their praise when it was offered.

Victor had worked very hard to get to this moment in his life.

And yet, the cost lay before him in an ever-growing mountain of burning paper and leather. A rally held to inspire people's fervor for the Third Reich had also become a celebration of book-hatred, a triumph of gleeful ignorance. People fed the blaze with eagerness, with savage rapture.

Each book that withered in the flame felt like a dagger to Victor. It was as if he could almost feel the suffering of the characters as they succumbed to the fiery results of fear and hatred.

He dabbed away one errant tear as subtly as he could, hoping no one had noticed.

First, he had been forced to betray and leave Sherlock to his doom; now, he was forced to stand on the side of evil as they worked to destroy knowledge, hope, the very voice of humanity. He had known that aligning himself willingly with Austria's oppressors would come at a great cost; he now understood that he had deeply underestimated that cost.

As soon as he was able, he excused himself from the proceedings. He walked tiredly along the arcade to one side of the large stadium, wishing that his path held more choices than he currently could see.

Lost in thought, he was an easy target for the man who grabbed him and pulled him into the shadows. He was pinned against the column before he even realized what was happening.

But the feel of his captor—the scent, even when disguised by a stolen uniform—the voice—all were familiar. "Herr Doktor," Sherlock's silken whisper breathed out of the darkness, "where is it?"

He looked into Sherlock's eye, barely visible under the brim of a soldier's hat. "How did you get here?" He tried to keep the tremble from his voice, and failed.

"Where is it? I want it," Sherlock hissed, and pulled open Victor's jacket forcefully.

Victor gasped, his heart racing, but Sherlock only reached for his pockets and found the diary. Victor had refused to turn it over to the Reich, knowing what they were likely to do with it. He looked up at Sherlock in surprise. "You came back for the book?"

"John didn't want it incinerated."

"Is that what you think of me?" Victor demanded, his voice cracking. "I believe in the Grail, not the Swastika!"

Sherlock bared his teeth. "And yet you stood up to be counted with the enemy of everything the Grail stands for. Who gives a damn what you think?"

"You do!" He hadn't meant it to sound so desperate. His hands were on Sherlock's waist, and he didn't even remember putting them there.

Sherlock's eyes were wide, pale, frightening in the dim, refracted light from the rally behind them. He shoved Victor back against the pillar again and pressed two fingers to the base of his throat. "All I have to do is push."

Victor put a hand around Sherlock's wrist, but he did not squeeze. "All I have to do is shout."

They stared at one another for a long moment, Sherlock panting with rage, Victor trembling in his grasp. Finally, Sherlock let go of him and spun away, striding across the arcade and into the shadows beyond.

"Sherlock," Victor tried to cry, but it only came out as a whisper.

* * *

><p>Using identification and money stolen from unconscious SS officers, Sherlock and John were able to check in to a hotel on the outskirts of Berlin. Sherlock had arranged transport aboard a zeppelin, but the flight would not leave until the following day, so (since they could see no sign that they had been tracked—at least, not yet) there was both time to kill and a well-earned night of sleep to be had.<p>

They were given adjoining rooms, and though John had seemed annoyed by the fact (he had refused to have dinner with Sherlock or discuss the diary until the next day), Sherlock found it was quite easy to leave the door between the rooms unlocked from his side. Though he was weary to the bone, he settled onto the clean linens with an empty stomach and a full mind, relentlessly ticking away at the details of everything he had seen and heard since leaving England.

He steepled his fingers under his chin and tried to forget that John was only a few meters away, on the other side of the hateful wall behind him.

Yet even as his mind shifted, stored, and analyzed all the data from their experiences, there was a voice that would not stop nagging him, prodding him with the memories of his foolishness about Victor, his failures with John. _What did you think? _the voice said, sounding something like Mycroft, _that Victor could be a substitute for John? That he could replace John? That you might be able to start over with him?_

In the bare, dark, honest places of his soul, Sherlock had to admit that none of these was actually the truth—though he had allowed himself a rare moment of sheer self-deception where Victor was concerned. He had let himself stumble blindly into an intimate situation without considering the implications—had, in fact, refused to give the implications full voice even as they whispered in the corners of his mind. The pleasant bubble of eager arousal that had filled him from the first moment of meeting the man had been so deliciously intoxicating—a feeling he'd not had since first meeting John—that he'd had little wish to douse it, even as his mind had sifted the facts and concluded that Victor stood only a 24% chance (at most) of being completely genuine in his ardor.

The risk had been too sweet a possibility to refuse.

It had also been a way to briefly—and hollowly—recapture some of the heady feeling he'd so enjoyed in the first few months of his life with John. He had known that he could not love Victor—not as he'd loved John—nor could Victor, in all likelihood, love him. It seemed in all of his life that only John H. Watson had had the suitable temperament and innate attraction to danger that made loving Sherlock Holmes possible. His headlong rush into Victor's arms had been nothing but an echo of that feeling of being loved, but he'd seemed unable to keep from grasping at it nonetheless.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid, _he told himself now. Mike was in danger, John was still at risk, and they were going to race the entire Nazi army for an object which, to his mind, may not even truly exist. All because he'd accepted Frankland's challenge: all because he couldn't resist the challenge posed by impossible quests. And because he'd wanted to impress John once again.

_Addiction is such a destructive thing, Sherlock,_ Mycroft's voice went on. _Surely you know this by now. _

Sherlock snarled and leaped up from the bed, starting to pace now, wishing they hadn't stopped here to rest, wishing they had found some other way to travel Southward and were already on their way. Wishing he could just send John home and retrieve Stamford and make sure everyone was safely back in London. Even those office hours and needy students didn't seem so bad now.

He was startled by the sound of a knock at the door, and it took him only a split-second to recognize that it came from the adjoining suite door rather than the door to the hallway. He opened the door to John, whose brows still looked thunderous and who was still fully dressed, but who held up a tray of food and said, "Okay, alright, I ordered room service, since I know you won't eat if I don't. Shall we?"

Sherlock stepped quickly aside and gestured toward the room.

It was small—in no way equal to his fine apartments in Venice, but in the corner was a writing-desk with a chair, which he offered to John, who set the tray down on the desk and took the seat. Sherlock sat on the edge of the bed nearby, hands on his knees, wondering whether John would keep his anger in check or decide to simply shout it all out at him now that they had nothing more pressing to do with their time.

John seemed to be pondering the same question. He sat looking at Sherlock, the diary bouncing gently on his knee. At length, he pulled the lid off of one of the plates of food and handed it to Sherlock. "Eat."

Sherlock ate dutifully, waiting, but John didn't say anything, and in silence they finished a modest meal. As John stacked the plates back onto the tray, Sherlock began to think _he_ should say something, and he opened his mouth cautiously. "Er, so…"

"Alright, look," John said suddenly, "you did say you were sorry, and I just wanted to acknowledge that fact, since I didn't earlier, and say…well, thanks for trying. Because I think you are trying. And I guess…that means something, does it? It's better than the nothing I got for almost three years—but no, I'm not going to dwell there, I really didn't want to bring that up again, so let me just say thank you for giving it your best, and now we can just move on. Alright?"

Sherlock stared at him, his mind boggling to process the entire utterance, and he realized that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it. "Er…yes. Of course. It's…fine. Great, actually. That's…great. I had hoped that…" His voice failed him for a moment. "I had hoped that someday perhaps you'd come to not hate me."

John gave one of those short laughs that Sherlock had come to know did not mean humor.

"Perhaps you still do, but it means a great deal to me to know that you're trying, too," Sherlock went on. "I'm sorry you have to be on this quest with me, rather than…well, anyone, I suppose. Though of course the best person would have been your father. So yes, I'm sorry it has to be the one person you didn't want to ever see again."

"And yet," John said, standing up and pacing away a few steps, "you're the one person I've thought about non-stop for the past five years of my life, Sherlock. How's that for irony?"

Sherlock stared. "You mean…you're indicating that you…"

"Don't hate you, yeah. Of course I don't. Could you hurt me this much if I did?"

Sherlock had to admit the logic in that. "Does this mean that you someday might—"

"Take you back?" John gasped, and he was breathing a little harder now, running his hand over his mouth and chuckling. "God, I don't know. I just don't know."

Sherlock was gaping again, but made no effort to stop himself this time. "I was going to say…forgive me," he whispered. "It was never a question that you'd…"

John looked at him for a moment, his tongue curling over his upper lip for a moment, then his hands were grabbing Sherlock's lapels, and then his face. "God, Sherlock," he breathed. "You still don't understand me, do you? I may _never_ forgive you, but God help me…I do need you."

The sensations triggered by John's sudden kiss lit Sherlock's brain and body up like a gasoline fire, and he jerked backward from it before he knew what he'd done. John stared, and then said, "I'm sorry, you don't…"

But the fire was raging now, and though the initial blaze of it had startled him with sweet, dark pain, he was anything but ready to stop it. He pulled John down into another kiss, this one hard and nearly desperate. The fire threatened to burn the very synapses that cohered his being, but Sherlock did not care. He would let it burn, if this was how he was to go. _John._

They pulled apart only long enough to share a few tremulous, panting breaths, to see one anothers' dazed looks and flushed faces, and John's hands were on Sherlock—God that touch, how he'd missed it, no one could handle him like John could—and John's mouth was _everywhere,_ and God, it was bliss, sheer bliss, and yes, this is how he would go, this could burn him to cinders here and now and he'd not care, just don't stop, John, don't stop…

John put a knee on the bed beside him now and lunged, pushing Sherlock backward. Sherlock let himself be pinned under the fearsome, savage kisses, let John grab his wrists and push his hands to the bed over Sherlock's head.

Sherlock could only strive to breathe through the searing heat lapping through his every vein, could only pant for breath as John plundered his neck with teeth and tongue, ungentle as he held Sherlock's wrists in one hand while undoing his flies with the other. Sherlock wanted to cry John's name, to beg him not to stop, but he was afraid that if he spoke, if he uttered one word, John would come to his senses and stop his explorations, go back to his room, and leave Sherlock in cold ashes.

He lay still, passive, waiting, allowing John to undress him, allowing John to stand away and undress himself. He tried not to speak, even to breathe, but when at last John stood naked before him, the sight was so familiar, so achingly beautiful, that he did say one thing before he could stop himself. "John."

John was breathing easier now, calmer, and he looked at Sherlock with an almost…gentle expression. "Are you sure about this?" His voice was low, soft.

"Yes," Sherlock whispered, mouth gone suddenly dry. He could not bring himself to return the question.

"Even if this isn't…any sort of…promise?" John asked, leaning onto the bed now, angling toward Sherlock but not yet touching him.

"Yes," Sherlock repeated, still in a whisper.

John looked at him a long moment, eyes roving over his face, his hair, his skin. He nodded. "Well. I'm not." He sat back, and Sherlock went suddenly cold.

"John," he started.

"No," John said quickly. "I just…I can't do this. I can't put myself into this…"

Sherlock raised a hand and slid it down the arm that was nearest him. He swallowed, and said as evenly as he could, "I would offer you more, but I do not think you would take it."

"Would you?" John asked, looking past Sherlock to the wall beyond. "Would you, after what you said in Austria?"

"I am…a poor partner, a broken machine of a man, I know this," Sherlock said, low and quiet. "But I was never whole without you. I never will be." He'd said it. He'd thought it so many times, and now he'd finally said it. He let out a long breath and grasped John's wrist, probably too hard, but he had to hold on to what he could, while he could. Any moment John would turn and leave, and—

But John turned to him, his eyes bright. "You do love me."

Sherlock formed the word "yes" with his lips, but no sound came.

Then John's arms were around him again—those incredibly strong arms, how _strong_ John was without most people realizing, God—and they were kissing this time with a slow depth, the desperate tension gone and a marrow-deep need pressing them deeper and deeper into the kisses.

As they made love, more slowly and deliberately than Sherlock would have thought possible, Sherlock held on for dear life to the moments, cataloging every sensation—no mean feat, as he could feel John everywhere, all the way to his toes and fingertips and every atom in between—and abandoning any attempt at silence. "John. _John…"_

It did not take long for John's cries to join his.

It seemed an eternity that they lay afterward, their panting slowing, their pulses easing gradually to a steady rhythm once more, Sherlock returning only with reluctance to the real world, the world beyond John's arms, the world where he could so easily forget the words that could be spoken in the magic of a moment.

At least, that was how it had always been. He did not know whether it could ever be different—he suspect it could not—but he was not able, now, to simply walk away from this man whom he loved more than himself, more than his life, more than even the work itself. He would simply wait and see what John wanted. He would be unable to say no, whatever it was that John might ask.

But at length, John rolled off of him and disappeared to the bathroom. He returned and gave Sherlock a warm flannel and bent to retrieve his clothing.

"I guess that means we'll talk about the diary tomorrow, then," he said finally.

Sherlock sat up, frowning. "Why?"

"Because I'm tired, and I'd like to get a good night's sleep before—no, in my own room, Sherlock, I really think that's best, at least for now."

_At least for now._

"All right," Sherlock said.

John paused at the door to his room. "Sherlock, don't. Don't…deduce this. The truth is, I just…don't know. I just don't know. Is that…can that be enough for you?"

Sherlock nodded. "Yes."

John nodded, looking at the doorframe. "I…forgive you."

Sherlock couldn't speak.

"Good night, then."

And Sherlock sat awake for much of the night, fingers steepled, deep in thought.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

_Berlin_

The zeppelin was even more gigantic than John had expected, filling a huge chunk of his field of vision as the taxi approached the airfield. He had never really expected to fly on one of these things; it was gratifying to know that he could still be surprised by new opportunities, even in his 30's.

Not that he'd suffered for surprises in the past 36 hours.

He risked a sidelong glance at Sherlock, who was also peering out the window at the looming airship, though John suspected that distracted gaze was an utter ruse. Sherlock always seemed able to see even when he was not looking.

It was a maddening skill, even when it was dead useful (John had been paranoid about Nazis finding them ever since they'd escaped Berlin unscathed the night before, so he was glad for Sherlock's constant vigilance), but that was par for the course with Sherlock. It was, John mused, a simple truth that if he were to find any lasting happiness with this man at all, he would have to accept that Sherlock was just always going to drive him bonkers—at least, to some extent.

And after their conversation last night, he was beginning to hope—for the first time in over two years—that this might be something he could actually cope with.

The trouble was, he was never sure how much to trust Sherlock's feelings on these sorts of things. He'd seemed so sincere the night before, and so truly sorry back in Austria, that it was hard not to believe that he wanted to make amends for past wrongs. It was hard not to believe that somehow, in his convoluted perception of human emotions, he'd believed that abandonment had been the kindest action he could bestow upon John.

It was also true that he might be saying these things, and in fact might have volunteered to come find John, just for the sake of winning him back, with no intent to work on any of the problems that had plagued their relationship the first time around.

There had never been a lack of love—God knows, they'd had enough of that. It was just…sometimes John had wanted more than Sherlock had seemed capable of giving.

Sherlock turned to face him, his eyebrow cocked, and John realized he'd been staring at the somber profile for the last few minutes.

John cleared his throat, but didn't turn away, and Sherlock seemed on the verge of saying something, but their taxi driver suddenly said, "Ja, we are here."

They tipped the man and exited the cab, glad that they had had a chance to get their clothes (and themselves) properly laundered the night before. They would certainly have attracted attention on the zeppelin in their previous filthy and well-smoked state after their adventures leaving the castle Brunwald yesterday. John even took a moment to buy a paper on their way in to the airship; newspapers were a good way to pass for a casual businessman or tourist.

He was beginning to relax by the time they settled into a pair of seats by the window in the main car, even feeling a bit hopeful that they might actually reach their destination before the Nazis caught them. "Well," he smiled across the table at Sherlock, "we made it."

But Sherlock was still gazing fixedly out the window. "When we're safely airborne, with Germany behind us, I'll be far more likely to share that sentiment."

"Oh, come on, Sherlock, we've gotten this far. We can…" But he trailed off, noting a change in Sherlock's expression. "What's wrong?"

Sherlock nodded subtly toward the window, and John looked out toward the ground to see—oh, hell. Magnussen and his Gestapo goons, heading right for the ship. "Shit. Sherlock—" But Sherlock had vanished. John groaned.

"I hate when he does that."

John picked up his paper and moved to a table nearer the back of the cabin, close to the kitchens, where he could see everyone entering and exiting and could make a quick getaway through the kitchen doors when the time came. He raised his paper and held it at an angle so that he could see the people coming in the open doorway to the cabin.

Before long, sure enough, the Gestapo agent had entered and was approaching each passenger table in turn, showing each of them what John assumed to be a photo of either him or Sherlock. Each passenger seemed to be looking at the pictures and shaking their heads in confusion. John raised the paper higher, calculating his odds. When the Gestapo agent's back was turned, he moved again, this time to a table nearer the open windows.

When the agent finally got to his table, he pushed John's newspaper down with a blunt walking stick, and John looked up at him in annoyance. "Vas?"

The Gestapo agent smiled. "Guten Tag, Herr Watson."

But before John could answer, a steward—a suspiciously British-looking steward—came up and tapped the man on the shoulder. "Fahrscheine, mein Herr. Bitte."

The man turned, frowning.

Sherlock leaned in close and said, "Tickets, please."

The Gestapo agent's nostrils flared, but before he could react further, Sherlock had sent the man's chin skyward with a sharp uppercut. The agent fell backward toward John, who grabbed him with one swift motion and pitched him out the open window.

The other passengers now gasped audibly, some standing up from their chairs, gaping in horror. Sherlock and John turned to face them, and Sherlock pointed out the window. "No tickets."

The passengers had never before produced their tickets with such speed.

* * *

><p>Thinking it wise not to stay after their little display, Sherlock and John found a table in another cabin and hoped that the rest of the trip would be uneventful. The airship had taken off smoothly following the ejection of the Gestapo officer, and there had been no sign of the shark-eyed Magnussen thus far.<p>

Sherlock appeared to be taking in the details of the room, perhaps deducing their traveling companions in order to assess their currently safety level—or perhaps just combat boredom. It was always hard to tell with Sherlock.

"So," John finally said, after the steward had brought them some very strong coffee and some bread with jam for a light breakfast. "Last night."

Sherlock waited.

"Did you," John said, pausing to clear his throat and looking across the busy dining cabin, "did you mean what you said?"

"Of course," Sherlock said, his voice low.

"Well," said John, putting down his cup, "that's great. Except what I don't understand is, why didn't you…you never wrote, Sherlock. You never called. You never tried to tell me what was going on. By the time you came back to the university, I was off doing field research and…well, why didn't you ever try to…I mean, if you really were sorry, why didn't you say so?"

Sherlock was silent a long moment. "I've said so now. Doesn't that count?"

"Count? It's…it's a bit late, is all," John said, trying to keep his voice quiet. "Two years—no, more like two and three-quarters, Sherlock, of hurt and anger and me thinking you'd just got bored with me. One word, one tiny word from you could have spared me that."

Sherlock's eyes were wide, and he looked away. "I couldn't speak to you, John."

"Whyever not?"

Sherlock rubbed his lower lip. "I thought you hated me."

John sipped his coffee, feeling more rueful than ever. "Would that I had. Would've been so much easier."

Sherlock gave a downward look that John recognized.

"I'm sorry—Sherlock, look, I'm sorry. I don't really wish that. You have to know after last night that I don't wish that. I never did. It's just…"

"I hurt you."

"Yeah."

"I don't know how to erase that, John."

John leaned in, caught Sherlock's gaze. "You can't. It's there, it happened, it's not going away."

Sherlock looked…fearful, John thought, at that moment.

"But," John added, reaching out a hand and closing it over Sherlock's wrist, "we can start from here, from now. We can just…"

Sherlock gave a one-sided smile. "You mean it, don't you? A second chance."

John's heart squeezed in his chest. Was he insane, to try this one more time? How on earth would he survive if he lost Sherlock again? But…Sherlock's wrist was turning in his hand, Sherlock's hand was sliding into his. This felt…right. They had always felt right together. They had always fit. He'd known it from the moment Sherlock had come crashing through that window at the castle Brunwald. There was no walking away from destiny.

"Yes. I mean it."

Their hands squeezed so hard that it hurt, but neither let go.

"All right," John said, suddenly businesslike. "Now that we are, as you said, safely in the air with Germany behind us, let's get down to brass tacks. To reach the Grail, the worthy man must pass three tests of bravery and cunning." He pulled the diary out of his pocket and thumbed it open to the relevant pages. "First, the Breath of God. Only the penitent man will pass. Second, the Word of God; only in the footsteps of God will he proceed. Third, the Path of God; only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth. "

Sherlock frowned. "What does that mean?"

John grinned. "I have no bloody clue. I guess we'll find out when we get there!"

Sherlock's frown suddenly deepened, and his head tilted as he watched a shadow shifting quickly across the surface of the table. "We're turning around," he murmured. "We're heading back toward Germany."

As one, the two men stood up from the table, John quickly tucking the diary back into his pocket. They exited as quickly and unobtrusively as they could, and John followed Sherlock down a series of passageways and stairwells, until they finally dropped through a square hatch in the floor and emerged in the hangar deck. Sherlock led them to the small emergency biplane clamped onto the bottom of the zeppelin, and they climbed in.

"So you've learned how to fly planes, then?" John asked over the noise of the engines.

"Fly, yes," Sherlock replied. "Land, no."

John groaned, but the sound was lost in the sound of the rushing wind, the airship engines, and, as Sherlock started the plane, its engines as well.

As they released the plane from the zeppelin and swooped away from the airship, John cried out to Sherlock and pointed behind them. Two German fighter planes were fast approaching.

"Man the machine gun!" Sherlock shouted, and John nodded, wishing for the first time that he'd served in the RAF rather than the Army. This was definitely not his area.

"Eleven o'clock!" Sherlock bellowed, and John swung the gun toward the enemy plane as it buzzed by, but missed his target. Thankfully, it had also missed them, thanks mainly to their small size.

John saw the second plane approaching and fired—and hit! The plane's engine coughed and belched black smoke, and before the pilot could bother ejecting, had crashed into the side of a tall, rocky mountain.

The other plane had swung round and was approaching from dead-on behind them—a tricky job of aiming with the rudder of the plane in between his gun and its target. As the plane got nearer, he tried aiming for one wing but misjudged the distance and—

Now the smoke was pouring from their own plane, and John said, "I'm sorry, Sherlock."

Sherlock turned to see the destroyed rudder, fighting to keep the plane under control, and John added, "They got us!"

Sherlock may have rolled his eyes, but it was difficult to tell, as all he said was, "Hold on, John…we're going down!"

Given the lack of rudder control and Sherlock's professed lack of landing experience, it could have been much worse, John thought, as the plane skidded across the hard, rock-strewn sand and knifed nose-first into a small hillock, jerking to a sudden stop. They leaped out of the plane, dodging the strafing fire of the Messerschmidt, now swooping low overhead. Sherlock looked around for a moment, grabbed John's elbow, and they ran for the road nearby.

An unassuming man was crouching there next to his car, having just fixed a flat tire and now preparing to re-attach the hubcap. Without any preamble, John and Sherlock leaped into the car, gunned the engine, and roared away. John looked back, then gave Sherlock a look and shouted, "Did we just steal that man's car?"

Sherlock shook his head impatiently and said, "We'll return it. It's for a good cause."

They sped along the road, but the gunfire from the passing plane continued. Sherlock floored the gas and tried to reach a tunnel directly ahead. The plane was screaming closer and closer, the bullets plowing up tiny explosions of dirt and rock all around them, coming ever closer.

The car entered the tunnel, but the plane was too close—it couldn't pull up in time and the sides of the tunnel sheared the wings neatly away from the fuselage, the body which skidded along the tunnel leaving a brilliant shower of sparks in its wake. Sherlock and John looked back at this unlikely spectacle, then at each other, and Sherlock gunned the engine once more. The car shot from the tunnel and swerved just in time to miss the fuselage fireball as it slammed into the side of a hill and exploded.

Sherlock brought the car to a stop and the two men regarded one another, panting for breath in the aftermath of the chase. John burst suddenly into laughter, and Sherlock smiled, and the next moment they were laughing breathlessly together.

"What in the _hell_ was that?" John exclaimed.

"Admit it," Sherlock said between giggles, "you have missed this."

"This? You mean constantly being chased by people who want to kill me? Why on earth would I miss that?" John insisted, still grinning. "You mad bastard." He leaned over and gave Sherlock one hard, smacking kiss. "One thing's for sure. My life with you has never been boring."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

_The Desert North of Iskenderun_

The caravan had been winding through a box-walled canyon for some time, and though Victor might have hoped the steep rock-faces would provide some relief from the relentless sun, this had proved a vain notion. He, Stamford, Frankland, and Magnussen traveled in an open car. They had provided him with goggles to protect his eyes from the sand, but he could still feel it covering his skin, filling his hair, lining his nostrils. He felt as achingly dry as the landscape, as though he might crackle and crumble away into powder, merging with the sand and vanishing altogether.

Frankland did, in time, pass him a canteen, which he took a modest drink from, and then handed off to Stamford. "Care for a drink?"

Stamford was as filth-streaked as Victor imagined he, too, must be, and Mike's sparse hair was standing in sweaty, dust-colored spikes about his head. "I'd rather spit in your face," he replied, "but as I haven't got any spit…"

He took the canteen, but before it reached his lips, Magnussen had taken it from him, swallowed a long, languid gulp, then closed the canteen and tossed it to one of his soldiers in the truck that had pulled alongside.

The car was flanked by trucks, local tribesmen on horses and camels, and an enormous German tank. Frankland was taking no chances with his prize.

And Victor was sure that he would find the Grail at the end of this journey. He wished he could be as cynical as Sherlock about the possibility, wished that this search meant so little to him or that he didn't truly believe that the Grail existed, but he knew in his very soul what they would find when they reached the Canyon of the Crescent Moon.

And he wished, despite everything that had happened, that Sherlock could be there to see it with him.

It was ridiculous, he knew, this crippling sentiment that he felt for a man he'd only just met mere days before. He'd been so careful not to get seriously involved with anyone, not to let emotional attachment interfere with his life's ambitions or derail his dreams. He had been the youngest person ever to earn a doctoral degree from his university; he had been the only one of his fellows who had earned a chance to study in England for a year. Academic respect at such a tender age had been hard-won, a battle fought against assumptions created by his looks and his genial nature.

But won, he had. It hadn't been one of his professors who'd been contacted about this mission; it had been _him_, now considered the foremost Grail authority in three nations, and he was not sorry for feeling proud.

He was often lonely, yes, but he had pressed on, ignoring it as best he could. A hazard of the job.

And now having met Sherlock, and having felt such an immediate connection of mind, body, and soul, he felt lonelier than ever. If only things could have been different. Would Sherlock have stayed with him? Or did he still love John? For it had been obvious that the two men were once lovers. One had only to hear how each spoke the other's name to know that.

But John could not offer Sherlock the things he himself could. Yes, John knew a great deal about history, about antiquities, about the Grail—and he was a surprisingly good lover—but the notion that he could be an equal partner to Sherlock Holmes was laughable. Sherlock had once loved him, yes, but now he'd met Victor—a partner of mind, an equal in understanding.

Surely Sherlock could see the value in such a partnership.

Victor was quite sure he already would have done, and that the two men would now be traveling side-by-side to retrieve the Grail, if it hadn't been for Victor's unfortunate—and unavoidable—affiliation with Magnussen and Frankland.

But of course, they had made the mistake of assuming Victor's priorities were the same as theirs. It was a mistake that they'd come to regret, Victor knew. He watched…and waited for his chance.

* * *

><p>From a bluff overlooking the canyon, Sherlock peered at the party below through binoculars. "Yes, I can see Mike," he said. "He seems unhurt. They've got a tank, though. Six-pound gun."<p>

John looked over at Sherlock and noticed the reflection glinting from the round lenses. "Sherlock, what are you doing? Get down!"

Sherlock lowered the binoculars. "John, we're well out of range…"

A shell whistled past them and the car Lestrade in which had driven them exploded into shrapnel. They dived for cover behind the rocks as debris rained down upon them.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade shouted. "That car was my brother-in-law's!"

* * *

><p>Frankland and Magnussen squinted up at the spot on the bluff where smoke was now rising from behind several large boulders. "Are you sure that was Holmes?" Frankland asked.<p>

"Oh, it's him alright," Magnussen said, smiling. "He's here somewhere."

Victor's stomach gave a painful leap. Was it hope…or fear?

Frankland turned to face Magnussen. "Put Stamford in the tank."

But before Magnussen could return, bullets began to explode off the vehicles, and Frankland and Victor took cover behind the car. "It's Holmes, all right!" Frankland shouted.

* * *

><p>Sherlock and John looked at one another in surprise as they heard Frankland's caravan come under attack. Sherlock scanned the nearby bluffs with his binoculars and then handed them to John, indicating a ridge farther back. John looked and saw olive-skinned men in red fezzes; they had the party in the canyon completely surrounded.<p>

"Who are these people?" he asked.

"Unimportant, as long as they keep the Nazis occupied. You stay here while I try to organize some new transportation."

"Stay here? Sherlock!"

John scowled as Sherlock disappeared around a boulder, then turned back to the battle raging in the canyon below. Grenades were being lobbed, Nazis were toppling over from sprays of gunfire, and Turks were dropping from the hillsides onto the canyon floor.

John looked thoughtfully at the tank in the center of the action and murmured, "We'll just see about that, then."

* * *

><p>Sherlock and Lestrade crouched behind rocks not far from Frankland's car.<p>

"I'm going to go after those horses," Sherlock said, nodding toward several Arabians whose riders had fallen or perished.

Lestrade nodded. "Right. I'll take the camels."

Sherlock frowned at him. "We don't need camels!"

"But—"

Sherlock leaned close and hissed, "No camels!"

* * *

><p>Victor and Frankland stood regarding a Turkish man lying battered and bleeding on the desert floor. His shirt lay open at the collar, and the tattoo of a double-barred cross could be seen on his chest. Frankland was pointing a gun at him. "Who are you, and what do you want?"<p>

"I'm a messenger from God," Kazim said, his voice unsteady. "For the unrighteous, the cup holds eternal damnation."

As he spoke, his gaze shifted from Frankland to Victor, and his eyes seemed to Victor to be pleading. Victor regretted that this man had to die—why couldn't he simply offer to help them, if he thought they were damned anyway? He put a hand on Frankland's arm, but it didn't matter. The life faded from the man's eyes and he lay still on the sand, his blank eyes gazing skyward.

Despite the heat, the back of Victor's neck prickled as if from a chill.

* * *

><p>John had meanwhile managed, via the convenient distraction of battle, to reach the tank. He crept up the side, yanked down the lone soldier standing guard and put him out with a quick blow to the back of the head, thinking for the hundredth time how surprisingly useful his military skills had been in the field of archaeology. He then opened the hatch and descended into the belly of the beast.<p>

Mike seemed to be alone, and thankfully not tied to anything, so John was able to simply walk up to him and tap him on the shoulder. He started and cried out, raising his arms as if to box with John, but then laughed. "John! Merciful heavens. How did you get here?"

"It's a rescue, old man. Let's get out of here!"

"Can't argue with that!"

They started to climb the ladder but quickly met with the barrel of a gun—Magnussen's lieutenant's gun.

Two officers and the General himself descended the ladder, forcing John and Mike up against a wall, a gun to each of their faces. Magnussen approached closely, with the same cold, dead look he'd had before. Did he even _have_ other facial expressions?

A small smile—or at least some curvature of the lips—played at the corners of his thin mouth as he approached John closely. "So, Herr Doktor Watson, what is in this book of yours?"

"Instructions in how to bugger off," John said smoothly.

Magnussen smiled almost indulgently then. "I just love your little soldier face. I'd love to punch it."

John raised his chin. "Do your worst, then."

Mike groaned a bit.

Magnussen stepped even closer and said, "Perhaps. But you seem so eager for that. You're a man who doesn't mind violence, I can see. I'll have to discover what you _do _mind. But…" he smiled vaguely, "you're going to give me the book either way. While you're deciding to listen, can I flick it?"

John stared. "I'm…sorry. Did you say 'flick'…?"

"Yes." Magnussen held back his middle finger with his thumb and put it up to John's face. "I'd like to flick your face." He delivered a sharp _flick_ to John's left cheek. John flinched, but otherwise did not move, did not stop glaring at the madman before him.

"It works like this," Magnussen said, "people give me what I want."

_Flick._

"They don't want to, but eventually, they do."

_Flick._

"So you're going to tell me what was so important in that book…"

_Flick._

"…that you came all the way back to Berlin and walked right into the Fuhrer's front garden, to get it back."

_Flick._

"You're mad," John murmured. His nostrils were flaring slightly.

"And you're angry," Magnussen smiled. "Very good. Tell me what I want to know, and I will stop."

A tendon in John's jaw was working furiously. "Go to hell."

Magnussen tutted. "Temper, temper, Doctor Watson. Perhaps we should try something more challenging…Your eye, perhaps. Now, now, Doctor Watson," he cautioned, as John's hand made to pull the man's arm away from him. "Don't blink."

The nearest Nazi pressed the barrel of his gun closer to John's face, and the other to Mike's head, and John returned his hands to the back of his head where he'd been holding them.

Magnussen flicked John's left eye, and John blinked furiously.

"Do try to keep it open, Doctor Watson. So much more fun. Victor managed it once. He made the funniest noises."

Suddenly the hatch opened, and Frankland shouted into the tank's innards, "Holmes is getting away!"

Magnussen turned to the fore of the tank, where the gunner sat, and shouted, "Find Holmes!" in German. The man swung the scope about until he had targeted something, and he gestured to Magnussen, who bellowed, "Fire!"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

_The Desert North of Iskenderun_

Sherlock had chosen wisely.

The horse he had selected from those he had liberated from the Nazis was just right—a compact black Arabian, not large but comfortable to ride and boasting sufficient stamina for a high-speed chase (with passenger) across the desert.

It was currently helping him dodge bullet-fire from the German tank on their left. It zigged when he asked it to zig, and zagged before he even knew he needed a zag. He couldn't have asked for a better steed.

He was contemplating this—deducing his horse's origins and previous experiences, estimating the time it would take them to reach the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, and concocting a plan to retrieve Mike and John—whilst leading the tank a merry chase. Whoever was driving it seemed perfectly happy to chase him off the very edge of a cliff, if that's what it took, so it was no great challenge to lead the great steel beast on a looping path right around to face the very truckloads of Nazis that had been following it. Any moment now—

Yes, there it was. The tank had quite literally crashed into one of its own trucks, which was now being carried along with the tank, impaled on the gun turret. Sherlock took the opportunity to draw near to the tank.

"John? John? John!"

From inside, he could hear answering cries: "Sherlock? Sherlock! Sherlock!"

Just then, the tank blasted the deadweight of the truck off of its gun turret, which then pivoted to face Sherlock dead-on. He grinned into the scope and shoved a rock into the gun-turret a split-second before it fired. The resulting "thunk" shredded the end of the turret and, he knew, had filled the interior of the tank with smoke. He only hoped that John and Mike could take advantage of the distraction.

The hatch on the tank popped open just then, acrid smoke pouring out. Magnussen emerged, looking a bit more smudged than he had previously, accompanied by a Nazi goon who aimed a sharp-nose Luger at Sherlock.

This was the moment, then, to part company with his excellent steed. Sherlock leaped sideways off the horse and onto the tank, just as the soldier fired into the space where Sherlock had been. Sherlock straightened and faced the dead-eyed Magnussen, and for one heartbeat, they only stared. Then the soldier tackled Sherlock and they fell, Sherlock pinned underneath the raging Nazi, mere inches from the moving treads of the enormous tank.

Sherlock grabbed the man's hand and wrestled for control of the gun. As they struggled, Sherlock could see more soldiers approaching. He managed to gain the advantage just long enough to push the gun back toward the soldier himself, meaning only to threaten him. Somehow, the trigger got squeezed in the struggle, and suddenly not only the soldier on top of Sherlock, but also two other soldiers behind him dropped dead of unexpected bullet-wounds. Sherlock peered in wonder at the gun, but the next moment, a chain had cut off his oxygen as Magnussen loomed from behind and pulled tight his crude, makeshift garrote.

Sherlock lurched sideways and found his arm dangling down into the open hatchway of the tank. He managed to grunt, "John!" just as he dropped the gun into the hole, hoping against hope that John would be the one find the thing.

Magnussen yanked Sherlock back toward him, but in the process, Sherlock's head banged against the scope, knocking it in a completely different direction. Sherlock couldn't help smiling, even as his head throbbed and his throat was being crushed by Magnussen's chain, thinking that perhaps some German down below had gotten brained by the suddenly-spinning handles of his own scope.

Magnussen maneuvered Sherlock onto his belly and was pushing his face toward the ever-moving treads of the tank. "Now, then, Herr Doktor Holmes, let us see about that pretty face of yours," he said, low and even, into Sherlock's ear.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock saw the gun turret suddenly pivot toward one of the nearby trucks. It fired, and the truck rose into a blossom of shrapnel. The pressure of the blast pushed both Sherlock and Magnussen toward the rear of the tank and broke Magnussen's hold on Sherlock at last.

"Thank you, John," Sherlock rasped at the pale sky overhead before rolling to his feet and locating Magnussen, who was only a few steps away and closing fast.

With a quick, hard cross to the left (the side Magnussen would not be expecting), Sherlock knocked him sideways and had just enough time to lurch toward the open hatch. He leaned over the opening and called, "John?"

John's face appeared momentarily in the open space below, gave a grin, and said, "You call this archaeology?"

Sherlock grinned back and said, "Let's go."

John and Mike climbed out, and as Magnussen staggered toward them again, Sherlock and John braced themselves shoulder-to-shoulder in front of Mike. Sherlock raised his fists to Magnussen and said, "Are you sure want to try this?"

Magnussen held out his arms at his sides and said, "I only want to know why you are still here, Doctor Holmes. Your little pet seemed reluctant to tell me."

Mike tapped on John's shoulder and said, "Er, how does one get off this thing?"

John hooked his foot around Mike's ankle, and Mike fell, tumbling neatly off the end of the tank and onto the sand, where he stood up, watching the machine roll away.

Lestrade swooped past him on horseback and pulled level with the tank. He looked at Sherlock and John and said, "Are you two switching sides, or what?"

John glanced at Sherlock, who said, "You first." John strode to the side of the tank and took Lestrade's hand. Lestrade pulled him roughly onto the horse, so that he was lying face-down across the pommel, and then slowed the creature until John could tumble safely off. Then Lestrade followed the tank once more, where Sherlock and Magnussen seemed locked together in a sort of death-grip.

The tank was approaching a cliff.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade shouted, and John's voice joined his. Sherlock had managed to finally knock Magnussen backward, but was just now noticing the looming dropoff.

Magnussen had grabbed his ankle. And it was too late to jump.

The last thing Sherlock's friends saw was the treads of the great steel beast disappearing over the cliff-edge.

* * *

><p><em>Gone.<em>

John could not process it.

His mind had gone suddenly empty, and he wasn't at all sure why.

He was standing at the top of a jagged cliff-face, over which he had seen the tank, the Nazi General, and the love of his life disappear. The smoking wreckage of the tank lay a hundred yards below them; he thought perhaps he could faintly make out the misshapen form of a man in a gray uniform not far from where it lay.

He had thought that, when the day inevitably came that he saw Sherlock die—for in their line of work, who would think they might live into old age?—that he would feel something—anything—horror, anger, sadness, fear…just…anything at all.

He had not expected this cool, mind-numbing emptiness.

He became vaguely aware of Stamford and Lestrade standing nearby, and thought he should speak. "He's…gone," was all he could manage at first. They didn't respond.

"Oh, God," he said, in nearly a whisper, looking at the horizon now. "I've lost him. For certain this time."

Stamford clamped a hand down on his shoulder. It felt distant and strange, as if it were someone else's shoulder entirely.

"I hadn't even told him anything," John said, realizing how much had been inside him, how much of it he'd never bothered voicing, or thought he couldn't articulate. "There was so much. But…we'd only just… God. Five minutes would have been enough, really. I...wasn't ready."

There was a long silence, during which John could hear the hollow sound of the unceasing wind through the canyon below, and the faint scuff of boots on rock and someone approached…

He whirled, instantly ready for battle, and found himself facing a bent, dirty, exhausted-looking Sherlock, his face and hair the color of sand, who was regarding him with unabashed confusion. "What are you three looking at?" he asked, his voice a crackled ghost.

John nearly knocked him over with a hug that was very like a tackle. "You. You!" was all he could manage.

Sherlock couldn't help grinning, his face pressed against John's neck and shoulder, but his wobbly legs gave way underneath him, and the two of them knelt quite suddenly on the rocky sand, John still squeezing Sherlock as if he were a life-preserver on a stormy sea.

Sherlock finally managed to raise his arms enough to return a fraction of the hug, and said, "I take it you thought me lost, then."

John didn't speak at first, and when he did, it was a breathless gasp. "Don't…ever…do that…again."

Sherlock chuckled and nuzzled John's neck. "I promise."

It was a very long time before John was able to let go of him.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

_The Canyon of the Crescent Moon_

By the time they returned to the spot where the Brotherhood had ambushed the caravan, Frankland and the rest of the Nazis (including Victor) were gone, and John knew they'd never beat their opponents to the temple now.

That did not, of course, mean that they weren't going to go at all.

As they rode through the canyon on Lestrade's newly-acquired horses (pinched from the Nazis—along with several camels, despite Sherlock's indignation; "Got to pay my brother-in-law back for that car you blew up," Lestrade had said), John was able to steal any number of covert—and overt—glances at Sherlock.

The usually well-manicured archaeologist was showing definite signs of wear, including remainders of sand in his hair and hairline, an impressionistically-swirled layer of dirt on his finely-chiseled face, and an overall air of dusty film about his ever-loved Fedora and leather bomber jacket. His knuckles were scraped and crusted with dried blood, his fingernails were filthy, and his clothes were an utter wreck.

John really couldn't think when he'd seen anything more lovely.

To be sure, he could recall many a cleaner Sherlock to memory—the fading sunlight playing over that unforgettable profile, lighting the sea-clear eyes from within, limning the fringe of lashes with a glow like firelight—but those thoughts would threaten to bring John's bravado to a crashing halt. To think of that Sherlock, so vulnerable, so uncharacteristically open, at a time when he'd almost been lost, when their lives were still so very much at stake, was a risk John was unwilling to take just yet.

But he knew that if this little adventure ended with both of them safe and sound, things were going to have to change between the two of them. Sherlock wouldn't like it, he knew, but they were going to have to have…a little talk.

Sherlock's mouth had compressed into a rueful quirk. "Yes…what is it?"

John looked away, examining the canyon walls with interest. "Nothing. I was just…"

"Thinking. Very loudly."

"Sorry, was I interrupting a frolic in your mind-palace, then?" John knew it sounded horribly snarky, but Sherlock only grinned.

"Something like that." He glanced over. "Doesn't mean that I mind."

John grinned at the pommel of his horse's saddle. "Okay. Well. Then. Um…what were you thinking about, if I might ask?"

"The three tasks," Sherlock said promptly, now all business. "What are they?"

John held the reins with one hand as he pulled out the diary with the other and flipped through the pages, bracing the book awkwardly against his opposite arm. "Here," he finally said, handing it over. "They're on these pages."

Sherlock frowned, reading quickly, and John looked ahead to where the deep, water-etched corridor of sandstone suddenly opened up, facing a sheer cliff into which had been carved a most elegant and beautiful temple façade. "Sherlock," he whispered, and his companion looked up from the book.

They all halted their horses and sat in silence for a moment, taking in the sight and not even daring, at first, to breathe. Then Sherlock muttered, "Corinthian columns and fronton, but the elements above are…"

"Alexandrian," John supplied. "Hellenistic blended with Alexandrian, but look at the figures—"

"Oh, all right, we get it," Lestrade cut in. "Can you two curb the architectural enthusiasm for just a moment so we can get on with this?"

"Yes, of course," John said, dismounting. "Sorry."

He led the way into the temple, followed closely by Sherlock, Lestrade, and Stamford.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark interior after the brightness of the desert sun, but within a few seconds, John could see that they were in a sort of atrium. A little beyond them was a large, round seal carved into the floor, and beyond that there appeared to be an opening to a larger chamber. The four men crept cautiously toward the chamber, peering around the edges of rocks until it became apparent that the chamber was indeed full of Nazis, along with their hired local Turkish thugs. Thankfully, they were all currently facing away from the opening where John and his companions crouched.

They inched slowly forward until they were close enough to overhear what was happening with Frankland and his men—or rather, they could have heard, if anyone had been saying anything. Frankland and Victor stood stock-still, facing some steps that led up to a narrow, dimly-lit passage beyond, which an apparently terrified Turk was now entering. He vanished beyond the opening of the passage, and for a moment, nothing happened except a slight breeze emanating from the passage itself.

Then a soft, insistent grinding noise, a scream, and something came rolling down the steps, past the startled Nazis, and into the path near where John and his companions crouched.

It was the man's head.

Mike turned away, his handkerchief pressed to his mouth, and was startled to see the barrel of a gun pointing to his forehead.

* * *

><p>Victor felt a thrill of foreboding to see the four sand-tossed, rumpled men brought at gunpoint to where he and Frankland stood. It was apparent that Magnussen had not survived the encounter—for which Victor could not be remotely sorry—and he almost smiled to see that Sherlock had survived.<p>

The look in Sherlock's eyes suggested it would not be a welcome sight, so he clamped his jaws shut and raised his chin, attempting to seem unconcerned that they had appeared just now, just as he was so close to truly finding, holding, bringing home the Holy Grail itself.

His eyes stayed fixed on Sherlock. "I never expected to see you again."

Sherlock was looking at Frankland, but said evenly, "I'm like a bad penny. I always turn up."

Frankland was smiling, but this time it was calculating rather than pliant. "Now, now, Doctor Schneider. Be kind to Dr. Holmes. He's going to recover the Grail for us."

Sherlock only smirked. "You can retrieve your own mythical playthings. I think I'll just stay right here, thanks."

Frankland tutted, still smiling. "Not ready to go down in history, then, Holmes? I'm disappointed."

"Go down in history as a Nazi stooge like you? No, thanks."

Victor knew this remark was directed at him as much as to Frankland.

"Nazis?" Frankland scoffed, eyes widening. "Is that the limit of your vision? The Nazis want to write themselves into the Grail legend and take on the world. Well, they're welcome. But I want the Grail itself. The cup that gives everlasting life! Hitler can have the world, but he can't take it with him. _I'm_ going to be drinking my own health when he's gone the way of the Dodo." He drew his gun and leveled it at Sherlock. "The Grail is mine. And you're going to help me get it."

_No. _Victor's mind raced. If Frankland killed Sherlock…

"Killing me won't get you anywhere," Sherlock said.

"You know what, Dr. Holmes? You're right." He pivoted and before anyone could blink, shot John Watson in the torso. John flinched, a frown on this face, and crumpled slowly to the ground, a blossom of darkest red growing fast across his shirt.

* * *

><p>Several things happened at once. Sherlock and Stamford lunged for John—Victor cried, "No!"—Lestrade gave a shout of rage. Frankland bellowed, "Get back!" to Victor and Lestrade, as Sherlock and Mike knelt on either side of John. Stamford folded his dust-covered jacket inside-out and pillowed John's head as Sherlock pulled open the bloodied shirt and revealed the wound. John was watching his face.<p>

"How bad…?"

Sherlock was wide-eyed as he took a wadded-up scarf from Lestrade and pressed it to the gaping hole. "It's not bad," he said, but it was so clearly a lie that John closed his eyes and gave a small groan.

"Great."

"Don't worry, don't worry, I just…" Sherlock's face was as white as John's. He looked at Mike, but Mike was looking beyond him, toward Frankland. Sherlock whirled, his face suddenly contorted in rage as he faced Frankland. "You—"

Frankland spoke over him, the gun pointed directly at Sherlock's head. "You can't save him if you're dead."

Sherlock jaw worked furiously, and he fought for composure. His eyes darted across the bodies of two decapitated Turkish men, the sinister opening that lay beyond them, the guns of the Nazi soldiers surrounding their little tableau. He refused to spare even a glance at Victor.

Frankland gestured toward the dark hallway that led to the Grail. "The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your lover now. It's time you asked yourself what you truly believe, Dr. Holmes."

Sherlock felt frozen in time—he had no option but to retrieve the Grail now. It was certainly hogwash that the thing could save John, even if it were to actually exist beyond that cobweb-draped corridor in front of him. But Frankland might allow them—would he?—to seek medical attention for John if he had the Grail in his hands. Or more likely, Sherlock could use it as a bargaining tool. There was no other way out of this but forward into the mystery.

There had been, too, a certain appeal in the notion of overcoming the mysterious challenges described in the diary, but this thought did not occur to him as he stepped forward and entered the dark stone passageway.

"The breath of God," he murmured to himself, reciting the first clue from the diary. "Only the penitent man may pass. Penitent. Penitent man…" What had those two unfortunate Turks done that was so lacking in penitence? What had they _not_ done that they needed to do?

The walls were sandstone, with tiny, perfectly straight but oddly-placed gaps here and there—another on the floor—as if space had been deliberately left between them. He glanced about at the cobwebs fluttering from the walls, the pattern into which they had recently been—_cut_—

He heard a sound like faraway wind through the chinks in a window, felt a slight breeze stir across his face. "The penitent man _kneels—"_

He barely had time to crouch, tuck, roll forward, his well-timed dive helping him avoid not only a spinning sawblade slashing at neck-level but a gut-spilling one emerging from the crack in the floor as well. He rolled to his feet and glanced back, watching the blades continue to slash through the air, and reached for his whip, flicking and hitching it to the mechanism of one, which stopped both. He tied off the whip to keep the blades still, but visible.

"I'm through!" he shouted back toward the central chamber.

He thought he could hear vague cheering, but knew this was only the beginning.

The sudden image of John, white and small and bleeding out on the stone floor, filled his mind, and he stopped, pain overwhelming his senses for a moment, the thought of losing John—losing him _now,_ just when they were on the verge of being together, truly together at last—paralyzing him, filling his head, his eyes, his ears, his veins.

_NO._

It was the reason he didn't allow sentiment to muddy his mind; there was always the threat that it would overwhelm him. Like the cocaine he'd dallied with in the past, emotion threatened to envelop his mind, blunt his senses, fool him into a sense of false complacency and render him useless for brain-work—or anything else. And he'd done, he thought, a tolerably good job of squelching sentiment out of his daily life, of simply denying his heart its foolish indulgence, on the theory that cutting off its blood supply would help this part of him to simply shrivel up and drop off of him completely.

Until he'd met John, of course. He'd found his passion for John intolerable and intoxicating in equal measure at first, and he'd worked hard to maintain the pretense that he cared for John only as a loyal partner in work. And then had come their touches, their breathless kisses, their lovemaking, and his denial had crumbled away like so much dust in those moments, the moments when they'd confessed soft , inexorable truths, breathing their souls so gently across bared skin, moments that Sherlock came to live for. The moments that had made him human at last.

And yet. John had been constantly frustrated by Sherlock's focus on the work, his refusal to admit in less romantic moments that he needed John, that he loved John, to let John share in all of his life instead of only pieces, and this had driven the wedge between them—the wedge that Sherlock had hoped to dissolve by his own withdrawal from the arrangement. Perhaps not so human after all.

But no. That wasn't right.

Sherlock had known what he was refusing John, and it had terrified him to think of giving it. So he'd fled. He'd fled rather than face this exact fear that froze his steps in place now, on this path to the Grail, this fear of love and loss and ultimate vulnerability.

He'd taken the coward's path.

He heard his breath echo faintly in the gloomy corridor, and vowed to himself that he would admit this to John, that he would indeed get a chance to tell John. He must tell John. This was now necessary. John needed to know. So that they could move forward together. Always together.

He let out a long breath and continued forward to the next chamber.

* * *

><p>In the main chamber, John's breathing was growing shallow, his pulse unsteady. Lestrade pressed the scarf to the wound, causing John to gasp but desperate to slow the bleeding. "You hang in there," he said to John, nodding. "Sherlock will find that Grail, you'll see. I mean…he's Sherlock, isn't he?" He gave John an encouraging smile, and received a weak nod in response.<p>

John closed his eyes and breathed, "Sherlock."

* * *

><p>Sherlock looked at the floor before him. Hexagonal stones covered every foot of space in front of him. He understood immediately: He had to step on the correct stones, or his foot—and the rest of him—would drop through the floor into a chasm below. He'd seen this sort of thing many times before—it was an old style of trap, and should be easy to negotiate.<p>

"The word of God. Only in the footsteps of God will he proceed," he recited. "The footsteps of God…" His eyes darted over the letters carved into the stones. "The word of God. The _name_ of God. Jehovah!"

He stepped forward and planted his foot on the nearest Latin letter "J."

His foot slipped through and suddenly he was up to his hip in the floor, foot dangling into unseen nothingness below. He froze, assessing. His other leg was still able to reach the solid rock he'd stepped from, and he gradually pulled and pushed himself back to a place of safety.

"Idiot!" he hissed, knocking at his temples in frustration. "In Latin, the name 'Jehovah' starts with 'I.'" He breathed for one second, then stepped onto the nearest "I."

The stone held.

He let out a breath and finished the word "E-H-O-V-A," and found himself safely on the other side. He could see light coming from the next chamber, just beyond. He trotted forward, heart pounding. He was almost there.

But instead of a chamber he found a chasm—a large, empty chasm—beyond which surely was the chamber that held the Grail. For this was the last challenge—the Path of God.

"Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth," Sherlock whispered, frowning. He looked at the wall next to him, and sure enough, there was a waterspout in the shape of a lion's head.

"You have got to be joking," he said aloud to no one in particular. He scowled into the chasm. The distance was probably 30 yards or more—far too long for a leap, even if he'd been able to get a run at it.

"It's impossible! No one could leap this!" he shouted angrily.

Distantly, he could hear Lestrade's voice down the passage. "Sherlock! You've got to hurry! He's fading fast!"

_Bloody hell. _

Surely the designers of the challenges hadn't expected this to be a _literal_ test of faith. For one moment, he imagined himself stepping serenely into the open air, strolling across the nothingness in zealous surety. The thought nearly made him laugh. He'd never been a man of faith—not in anything, really, except the work. His own brains and skills. And eventually, yes, John and his support, never asked for but always freely given. These were the things in which he had faith, these and nothing more. There would be no magical thinking carrying him across this abyss on the shoulders of angels.

Was that the sort of faith that was required, in order to reach the Grail?

But no. No. There had to be a way. The other clues had given him solid, real, tangible advice, advice which had brought him safely through the challenges. It wasn't likely—even possible—that this one was now requiring something nebulous and faith-based_. _It made no sense. There must be a way…must be…

He crouched, frowning into the chasm, at the opening beyond. If he were going to create an illusion of an unpassable gap, how would he do it? Unseen lines running across the chasm, perhaps? It seemed very Harry Houdini, and he could see no means for connecting them to the sandstone, but perhaps…

He reached down, meaning to feel his way across the sheer rock face beneath him, but his hand crumpled and his knuckles came away bloodied. There was…_rock._

He put his hand out again, this time opened and flat, and felt—yes, it was rock, right in front of him. He screwed up his eyes, forcing his perspective to shift, and leaned this way and that. Ah—there it was. The rock had been cleverly carved and painted to look like the opposite cliff-wall. The image even shrank away in perfect forced perspective as he ran his eyes along the length of it. He'd never seen anything more clever.

He gathered up a handful of sand and scattered it forward, solidifying the path in front of him. It ran straight across the gap.

"Brilliant," he murmured, and stepped forward.

He was smiling now, buoyed by the thrill of success and the rash hope of saving John with what he might find in the cavern beyond. _Hold on, John! _He was practically running by the time he entered the small, domed chamber, and had not stopped to wonder why it was already lit from within until he emerged into the golden light.

The light came from candles, and the candles illuminated a long, curving shelf glittering with golden cups—chalices, flagons, and grails of every description. Sherlock sensed movement to his left and started, his hand reaching for the whip he no longer had with him.

The candles had presumably been lit by the man kneeling at an altar in the center of the room.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

_In the Knight's Chamber_

Sherlock might have thought perhaps the man was already dead, though only recently so, if he hadn't moved. Sherlock began to step forward but then froze as the man slowly stood and turned to face him. A chain-mail coif surrounded a face that was old—very old, though not unnaturally so—and he wore the surcoat of a knight of the last Crusade.

He was reaching for a sword. Sherlock could only watch, fascinated, as the man raised the sword over his head, wobbling a bit on his unsteady feet, then tipped backward into the alter, overbalanced and overcome by the heavy sword. Then he smiled at Sherlock. "Knew you'd come. But my strength has left me."

Sherlock stepped forward. "Who are you?"

"The last of three brothers sworn an oath to find the Grail, and to protect it."

"That was…seven hundred years ago!"

The knight nodded thoughtfully. "A long time to wait." He then looked down to Sherlock's shoes and back up to his hat, and said, "You are strangely dressed, for a knight."

"I'm not exactly…" Sherlock frowned. "What do you mean? Why…a knight?"

"I was chosen because I was the bravest and the most worthy. The honor was mine until another came to challenge me to single combat. I pass it to you who vanquished me."

Sherlock paused for a moment, then said, "I don't really have time to explain, but if you could-"

But it was too late. Sherlock heard movement at the entrance to the chamber, and turned to see Frankland and Victor entering, their eyes wide and golden in the reflected light from the hundred chalices.

* * *

><p>Victor could not believe what he was seeing.<p>

From the impossibility of the Crusade knight, to the golden sea of cups beyond, it was all like a scene from a dream.

The best dream Victor had ever had. _This is it_, he thought. _This is finally it._

Frankland's mouth hung agape, the buffoon, and he said, "Which one is it?"

"You must choose," the knight said. "But choose wisely. For as the true Grail can grant life, a false Grail can take it from you."

Frankland gaped even more widely, then shrugged. "But I'm not a historian. How can I possibly—"

"Allow me," said Victor softly. _Yes. Let me choose for you,_ he thought contemptuously. _Trust me just this once more_. Victor chanced a glance at Sherlock, who was looking at him furiously. He appeared to know what Victor was planning. Of course he did. _You'll see, Sherlock, _he thought. _You'll see that I can be as clever as you—cleverer, even—and then we'll have the Grail for ourselves. _He could barely control the tremulous rush of excitement within him.

"Thank you, Doctor," said Frankland, sounding relieved.

Victor strolled among the cups, appearing to consider several in turn, and at length he reached out to take a large, ornate flagon inset with emeralds and rubies. _That's the one, the perfect choice. _He turned to Frankland eagerly—happily—and said, "This one."

Frankland's eyes gleamed with a feral glow. "Yes. Of course. It's more beautiful than I ever imagined. This certainly is the cup of the King of Kings."

He approached the altar, into which a basin of water had been set, and scooped up a cupful of the clear liquid. He raised the cup and took a moment to gaze into it, his face nearly manic, and said, "Eternal life!" He then drank a swallow of the water.

For one moment, nothing happened.

Victor waited, feeling triumphant. It would only be another moment or two, he was sure...

Then Frankland gave a gasp and bent forward, dropping the chalice. He clutched at his stomach with one hand and raised the other in front of his face. It looked dark and withered.

"What…is…happening…?"

His face was dark, waxy, sunken, and he was gasping for breath. His hair seemed too long, too grey, and his fingernails were growing visibly. His face was wrinkled now, sagging on his skull, and he turned and lurched toward Victor, grabbing him by the shoulders and screaming, "What is happening to me?!"

Victor screamed, too, as Frankland's hair grew past his shoulders, his skin shrank suddenly away from his bones, his eyeballs rolled up and vanished into their sockets, his teeth began to drop away from gums that were only bones…

It all happened in a matter of heartbeats, and in the next, Frankland's flesh blew away like powder and a skeleton still held Victor by the shoulders. He must have been screaming still, for Sherlock stepped forward and pulled him away, and Frankland's remains flew backward and shattered into dust on the wall beyond them, leaving behind only the Nazi insignia from his uniform.

Victor clung to Sherlock, sobbing.

"He chose…poorly," said the knight.

* * *

><p>Sherlock held the trembling Victor only because he had forgotten his arms were there. What he had witnessed was…impossible. And yet. He'd seen it, and so had the other men in the room. How could it be?<p>

His mind was racing, grasping at absolutely nothing. He had no frame of reference for this sort of…horror, this inexplicable _magic_ he had just witnessed. He had no prior experience with this sort of fear. He found that he, too, was trembling against Victor, fear beating against his brain and fogging his senses. He struggled to control his body's response to the terror.

Slowly, gradually, he became aware of the kind face of the knight smiling gently at him.

"You still may choose, if you wish," he said.

Sherlock took several deep breaths, calmed himself, nodded. Then he pushed Victor away slowly.

Yes. The false Grail had indeed brought death to Frankland. Thus, the true Grail might bring life…oh, _God_. He was going to save John.

Suddenly, for the first time in his life, Sherlock did not care _why_ something had happened, nor _why _he could not deduce it logically. He cared only that it _had_ happened, and that it proved Frankland correct, and that John—_please, please let it be so_—John might be healed.

He turned to the cups and began searching through them frantically.

"It won't be made of gold," Victor supplied, quite unnecessarily, and then they both saw it, both pointing at once.

It was dark and simple, earthenware gilded with time-bronzed gold, worn perfectly smooth with use, time, and careful craftsmanship.

"This is the cup of a carpenter," Sherlock murmured, and he and Victor looked at one another questioningly.

Then Sherlock turned toward the basin. "There's only one way to find out."

"Wait!" Victor called, and Sherlock turned.

He held the cup toward Victor and said, "I don't suppose you'd like to try?"

Victor didn't answer.

Sherlock turned back to the basin and said, "Promise me you'll get him to a hospital, if this doesn't work."

Again, Victor was silent.

Sherlock half-turned, and said loudly, "Promise me!"

Victor paused, then said in a voice so quiet Sherlock almost couldn't hear, "Alright. I promise."

Sherlock dipped the cup into the water and without hesitating, brought it to his lips. Within one, two heartbeats, he felt warmer, calmer, more at peace, and his head and neck ached less than they had. By the time he turned to the knight, the scrapes on his knuckles had vanished.

"You have chosen wisely," said the knight, smiling. "But take heed. The Grail cannot pass beyond the Great Seal. That is the boundary, and the price for immortality."

Sherlock nodded, then scooped up a cupful of the water and dashed out of the cave to find John.

* * *

><p>Getting to John through the hired Turks was no problem—they took one look at the Grail and fled in terror. The Nazis watched, guns raised, as Sherlock showed them his empty hand and a simple cup and approached his cluster of friends.<p>

Mike raised John's head gently and Sherlock said in low tones, "John, I've brought you some water. Drink it, now. Come on." John stirred and managed to open his mouth just enough for Sherlock to pour a small dribble of water into it. "Good. Good. Drink it up."

But would it be enough? He wasn't sure. He thought for a moment, then removed the scarf pressed to John's wound and poured the water directly onto the wound. It hissed and bubbled, and John gasped, but as they watched, the wound quite literally washed away and disappeared.

A few of the Nazis nearest them decided it was time to follow where the Turks had led, and tossed down their rifles before bolting.

John's eyelids fluttered, and he opened them, blinking up at Sherlock, and said, "What was that, then?"

Sherlock smiled gently at him and held up the Grail for him to see.

John stared in wonder, rose up to touch it, took it from Sherlock's hand and marveled. "I drank…from this? Is it…?" he whispered, quaveringly.

Sherlock nodded. "And I did, too. Had to make sure it was safe," he said to Lestrade and Mike's questioning looks.

There was a little water left in it. John said, "Well, can't let it go to waste." He handed it off to Lestrade and Mike, who looked awed and reluctant, but ultimately, took modest sips of the cool water.

"How do you feel?" Sherlock asked John.

"Like a million bucks, actually," he said, still staring at the Grail, turning it in his hands wonderingly. "I just wish…Dad could have seen this."

"Without him, this would not have been possible," Sherlock said, smiling.

Then they all seemed to remember that there were still Nazis standing about—though they seemed to simply be staring, gaping, guns forgotten at their sides—and Lestrade grabbed one of the rifles abandoned by the runaway soldiers and pointed it at the nearest.

"Guns down, then," he said. "We'll just be going, if you don't mind."

Sherlock took the Grail from John and put it on the ground. "The knight said we can't take it from here. You know how these things work."

John looked crestfallen, but then said, "Oh, God, Sherlock, the knight! You saw him? He was there? _Alive?"_

Sherlock grinned. "I'll tell you all about it later."

They all took up guns and pointed them at various Nazis, who seemed only too happy to give up their weapons and begin exiting the chamber. But Victor, whom Sherlock had very nearly forgotten about, scooped up the Grail and said, "You're not just _leaving_ it?"

Sherlock turned to face him as the others walked toward the antechamber beyond. "You heard what the knight said."

"Sherlock, the man's 700 years old. He's going to die here whether the Grail is his to guard or not. What can he do to us?"

"Victor—"

"Sherlock!" Victor shouted, a desperate gleam in his eyes. "We have the Grail! It's _ours!_ Yours and mine!" He trotted toward the antechamber, motioning to Sherlock. "Come _on! _We have it! Let's go!"

"Victor, stop!"

But Victor laughed. "What, you think I'll give it to the Fuhrer now? We can use this to _defeat_ him, Sherlock! I can have my homeland back! No one ever need conquer it again!" He smiled, the eyes that had once been so full of sunshine to Sherlock now seeming tinged with the light of madness. "Please come with me! You know we're good together. Now we can be together forever! We'll travel the entire world five times over!" He was walking backward now, away from Sherlock, gesturing to the wide opening, beyond which the light of the fading desert sun still shone.

Sherlock could only stare.

"What is it?" Victor asked Sherlock with glee. "What's wrong? Surely you don't think you can be happier with John than with me? We are equals, you and I, perfect equals in every way! I know I can make you happy, and you make me so very happy. This life we can make together, Sherlock, it's going to be marvelous, you'll see! It will be perfect!"

Sherlock only stood, watching him go. "No, Victor. My life is with John. It always has been, and it always will be."

Victor frowned, but still kept stepping ever-backward. Sherlock glanced down, and said, "No, stop! You're on the Great Sea—"

But it was too late. A loud rumbling crackled through the caverns behind them and into the walls to either side.

"Oh, shit," John said, and then, "Run!"

They all bolted for the exit, but the walls were already shaking themselves to pieces, and the floor heaved up like a great behemoth underneath them, throwing them all to their bellies. Sherlock watched as Victor pitched forward and the Grail skidded across the lacquered floor and away from him. The next second, a great crack opened like a mouth right through the middle of the floor and across the Great Seal, splitting the earth wide and swallowing terrified Nazis before they could reach the doorway to safety.

Sherlock stood and lunged for the Grail, but it was too late—Victor had leaped a split-second before and had fallen again, knocking the Grail into the chasm. "NO!"

Victor would have leaped in after the cup if Sherlock hadn't caught him around the waist. "Victor, stop! Let it go!"

"No, Sherlock, I see it!" Victor said, desperately struggling against Sherlock's grasp. "It's right there! Let me go!"

Sure enough, the Grail lay gleaming dully on a small ledge several feet below them. Victor rolled over and elbowed Sherlock in the face, freeing himself and leaping into the crack before Sherlock could stop him again. The floor heaved again, and Victor was thrown to the side of the wall, dangling with no apparent fear into the chasm, holding on to the edge of the crack with one hand while reaching desperately for the Grail with the other.

Sherlock grabbed his wrist and pulled, "Come on, Victor, give me your other hand. Come on."

"No, Sherlock, look, I can almost reach it," Victor grunted, straining. His hand was slipping from Sherlock's grasp. Sherlock felt John's strong arms around his middle, helping him pull against Victor's weight.

"Victor, I can't hold you. Give me your other hand!"

"I'm…almost…there…" Victor panted, his fingertips brushing uselessly at the Grail.

"Victor, let it go! I can't hold you—"

His hand slipped from Sherlock's and Victor dropped, falling fast into misty darkness below, his surprised shout fading into silence.

Then the walls rumbled again, and debris from the shattering statues was falling in great chunks around Sherlock and John. The floor buckled again, and they slide sideways, but John held hard to Sherlock and braced him at the top of the crack, preventing him from falling in.

"We need to go," John shouted into Sherlock's ear against the roar of the crumbling walls.

Sherlock gazed into the chasm for a moment, and John wasn't sure whether it was the Grail or Victor he was contemplating. The Grail still lay on the ledge, enticingly near. John stood and held out his hand. "Sherlock. It's time to go."

After a very long moment, Sherlock turned, put his hand into John's, and said, "Yes. Let's go."

They stood, and John looked back at the central chamber, which was still largely intact. He could see a figure there—a figure in chain mail and a surcoat with a Byzantine cross—raising its arm in farewell. He mirrored the gesture, smiling in awe as he saw with his own eyes the last living remnant of the Crusades.

And then Sherlock murmured, "Come on, John," into his ear and they ran out of the crumbling structure, emerging hand in hand into dust-sparkled sunlight.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

_Istanbul_

"So he just…aged and died, right before your eyes?" John asked, toweling off his damp hair with a rather thin cloth and missing the hotel they'd stayed at in Berlin. Istanbul was the gateway to the west, and one of the earliest civilizations still existing on the earth—and Mycroft had done a great job of getting them there in safety and comfort—but the hotel towels, he had to say, were rubbish.

"He didn't only die," Sherlock clarified from his place on the bed, leaned up against the intricately-carved headboard, fingers steepled. He wore a Turkish silk dressing-gown—which matched John's—and a pair of silk pyjama pants, all of which had been waiting for them at the hotel, courtesy of Mycroft's assistant, along with a note from Mycroft thanking them for disposing of both the traitor Frankland and the mad General Magnussen. As if they'd done it on purpose, or for king and country.

"He decomposed utterly," Sherlock went on, "from decay to rot to dust in a matter of seconds. I've never seen…well, nobody's seen anything like it before, I suppose, except perhaps for the old knight." He was frowning slightly. "Who is, by the way, yet another unsolved mystery. Who do you suppose he really was?"

"Because of course he couldn't actually _be_ that knight, right?"

"Course not," Sherlock said, but with no conviction.

"Look at you," John said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "having such difficulty deducing what you witnessed."

Sherlock only looked at him from under knitted brows.

John smiled calmly. "Sherlock, this more than anything should have taught you that there are some things in life we can't explain. That's just…the way it is."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps. But I don't have to like it."

John chuckled. "No. No, you don't." Then his face became serious, and he put a hand on Sherlock's arm. "About Victor…"

"John," Sherlock said quickly, but in a low voice. "I didn't. I don't."

John sat watching his own hand on Sherlock's bicep. "It's alright if you—"

"But I don't."

John stood up and went to the washbasin in the corner of the room. He pulled a comb carefully through his hair as Sherlock watched. "I'm not stupid, you know. I heard what he said. And you know. Maybe he's right."

Sherlock sniffed. "You say that only because you didn't see him in the knight's chamber. The man was completely unfit for real archaeology."

John turned back to Sherlock with an incredulous look. "You know that isn't what I meant."

Sherlock sighed and sat up. "You're worried because you think I'm mourning him. But I'm not. He made a fool's choice. And I—" Here he had to speak over John, who'd started to say something, "did feel something for him, briefly, yes. An accurate deduction on your part. But in the end, I felt…only pity. His intentions were not…completely unacceptable, and I didn't want to see him dead, but he didn't really understand what he had found, even then. What happened was…a terrible waste of a good scholar."

"You sure about that?" John asked. "You spent an awful lot of time looking like you were going to go in after him, when he fell."

"John!" scoffed Sherlock. "Do you think I'd waste precious time on such pointless _sentiment?_"

And here John had to smile.

"I was contemplating whether it might be worthwhile to retrieve the Grail, actually," Sherlock went on, leaning back again. "I mean, the chamber was going to self-destruct regardless, at that point. I thought perhaps…the Grail would make a splendid landmark piece for the museum, after all."

John was laughing now. "You just can't stop, can you? Always with the danger."

Sherlock only gave him the tiniest of smiles and a minute come-hither jerk of his head. "Sound familiar?"

"Oh, yes," John said reasonably. "Loving Sherlock Holmes is never, ever safe." The next moment, he was on the bed, crawling over Sherlock, seating himself on his lover's lap and boxing him in, hands pressed against the headboard on either side of Sherlock's head.

"Must be what keeps you coming back," Sherlock murmured lazily.

"Oh, yes," whispered John, and he lapped Sherlock's lower lip into his mouth. But just as Sherlock's hands reached up for the tie of John's robe, John drew back and said, "But."

Sherlock froze, frowning.

"Before we leap into our own abyss here, we need to talk about some things."

"Yes." Sherlock said it so suddenly and so firmly that it was John's turn to look surprised.

"Well…alright, then. How about you go first."

Now Sherlock looked uncomfortable. "I was thinking, during the challenges."

"I'd expect nothing less," said John in a light tone, but he slid from Sherlock's lap and sat back, listening. Sherlock turned away and stood up, his hands behind his back. "I came to realize...Well. I came to realize that when I…left, I may have been mistaken as to my reasons for…"

John's arms were crossed and his eyebrows were forming a series of quizzical shapes as Sherlock spoke. He clamped his mouth shut and pursed his lips, listening.

"…What I mean to say is, I told you that I left because I believed it would bring you greater happiness. And while that is true…it might also be said that I…" A slight sheen of sweat could be seen on Sherlock's upper lip.

John finally ended his misery. "You were scared shitless and ran away."

Sherlock closed his mouth suddenly, his jaw jutting forward slightly. He turned toward the window with a dignified air, swallowed audibly, and said, "Yes." He then half-turned back toward John. "You knew."

John sighed. "Well. I was pretty sure. I do know you awfully well, you mad bastard." His voice was warm, and Sherlock turned fully back toward him.

"Are you angry? You're not angry. Why are you not angry?"

"Sit down, Sherlock," John said, nodding toward the opposite side of the bed. Sherlock eased himself to a sit, one leg folded toward John and the other still hanging over the edge of the bed. "I'm not angry, because I know you're sorry for it. I know what it took for you to admit that—or almost do—and I'm glad that you saw fit to tell me the truth."

Sherlock's mouth was hanging open again.

"Plus, love really is scary. I was terrified, too, being vulnerable to a mad genius with an underdeveloped sense of human relations. Though being without you was an even more frightening thought." He looked for a moment like he was ready to lean in for another kiss, and then seemed to catch himself. "I did want to tell you, before we get down to—" and here John gestured vaguely toward the pillows and Sherlock's lengthy person—"other things, that if this is going to work between us, there have to be some rules this time."

Sherlock nodded.

"First, you have to talk to me when there are problems. No running away. No pretending, no ignoring, no taking cases just to avoid facing our difficulties—yes, you did, I know you did—and that's the first one."

Sherlock, looking a bit like a shamed dog, nodded again. "I promise."

"The second one is that—"

"That I treat you as a proper romantic partner, not only when we're having sex," Sherlock filled in, the words tumbling like a waterfall over each other.

John smiled, nodded. "Now you're getting the hang of this."

"But what if I need—"

"Time alone in your mind palace?" John finished. "Yes. You should be able to have that. I need time away from you as well, you know."

Sherlock began to look slightly affronted, but this time John did lean in to kiss away his indignation. "There can be more later. Just so we know we're on the same page."

At this, Sherlock folded forward, his forehead resting on John's shoulder, and for the next eternity they only pressed fast together, holding on to the moment given them. The moment felt like a promise, the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Like a vow.

And if it was the first for them both, it would certainly not be the last.

~fin


End file.
